TOGETHER

BY

ROBERT HERRICK

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

She stood before the minister who was to marry them, very tall andstraight. With lips slightly parted she looked at him steadfastly, not atthe man beside her who was about to become her husband. Her father, with alast gentle pressure of her arm, had taken his place behind her. In thehush that had fallen throughout the little chapel, all the restlessmovement of the people who had gathered there this warm June morning wasstilled, in the expectation of those ancient words that would unite the twobefore the altar. Through the open window behind the altar a spray of youngwoodbine had thrust its juicy green leaves and swayed slowly in the air, which was heavy with earthy odors of all the riotous new growth that waspushing forward in the fields outside. And beyond the vine could be seen abit of the cloudless, rain-washed sky. 

There before the minister, who was fumbling mechanically at hisprayer-book, a great space seemed to divide the man and the woman from allthe others, their friends and relatives, who had come to witness theceremony of their union. In the woman's consciousness an unexpectedstillness settled, as if for these few moments she were poised between thepast of her whole life and the mysterious future. All the preoccupations ofthe engagement weeks, the strange colorings of mood and feeling, all thepetty cares of the event itself, had suddenly vanished. She did not seeeven him, the man she was to marry, only the rugged face of the oldminister, the bit of fluttering vine, the expanse of blue sky. She stoodbefore the veil of her life, which was about to be drawn aside. 

This hushed moment was broken by the resonant tones of the minister as hebegan the opening words of the sacrament that had been said over so manymillions of human beings. Familiar as the phrases were, she did not realizethem, could not summon back her attention from that depth within of awedexpectancy. After a time she became aware of the subdued movements in thechapel, of people breaking into the remote circle of her mystery, --evenhere they must needs have their part--and of the man beside her lookingintently at her, with flushed face. It was this man, this one here at herside, whom she had chosen of all that might have come into her life; andsuddenly he seemed a stranger, standing there, ready to become her husband!The woodbine waved, recalling to her flashing thoughts that day two yearsbefore when the chapel was dedicated, and they two, then mere friends, hadplanted this vine together. And now, after certain meetings, after somesurface intercourse, they had willed to come here to be made one... 

"And who gives this woman in marriage?" the minister asked solemnly, following the primitive formula which symbolizes that the woman is to bemade over from one family to another as a perpetual possession. She gaveherself of course! The words were but an outgrown form... 

There was the necessary pause while the Colonel came forward, and takinghis daughter's hand from which the glove had been carefully turned back, laid it gently in the minister's large palm. The father's lips twitched, and she knew he was feeling the solemnity of his act, that he wasrelinquishing a part of himself to another. Their marriage--her father'sand mother's--had been happy, --oh, very peaceful! And yet--hers must bedifferent, must strike deeper. For the first time she raised her shiningeyes to the man at her side... 

"I, John, take thee Isabelle for my wedded wife, to have and to hold ... Insickness and in health ... Until death us do part ... And hereby I plightthee my troth. "

Those old words, heard so many times, which heretofore had echoed withoutmeaning to her, --she had vaguely thought them beautiful, --now camefreighted with sudden meaning, while from out the dreamlike space aroundsounded the firm tones of the man at her side repeating slowly, with gravepauses, word by word, the marriage oath. "I, John, take thee Isabelle, "that voice was saying, and she knew that the man who spoke these words inhis calm, grave manner was the one she had chosen, to whom she had willedto give herself for all time, --presently she would say it also, --foralways, always, "until death us do part. " He was promising it with tranquilassurance, --fidelity, the eternal bond, throughout the unknown years, outof the known present. "And hereby I plight thee my troth. " Without a tremorthe man's assured voice registered the oath--before God and man. 

"I, Isabelle, " and the priest took up with her this primal oath offidelity, body and soul. All at once the full personal import of the wordspierced her, and her low voice swelled unconsciously with her affirmation. She was to be for always as she was now. They two had not been one before:the words did not make them so now. It was their desire. But the olddivided selves, the old impulses, they were to die, here, forever. 

She heard herself repeating the words after the minister. Her strong youngvoice in the stillness of the chapel sounded strangely not her own voice, but the voice of some unknown woman within her, who was taking the oath forher in this barbaric ceremony whereby man and woman are bound together. "And hereby I plight thee my troth, "--the voice sank to a whisper as ofprayer. Her eyes came back to the man's face, searching for his eyes. 

There were little beads of perspiration on his broad brow, and the shavenlips were closely pressed together, moulding the face into lines ofwill, --the look of mastery. What was he, this man, now her husband foralways, his hand about hers in sign of perpetual possession and protection?What beneath all was he who had taken with her, thus publicly, the mightyoath of fidelity, "until death us do part"? Each had said it; each believedit; each desired it wholly. Perversely, here in the moment of her deepestfeeling, intruded the consciousness of broken contracts, the waste ofshattered purposes. Ah, but _theirs_ was different! This absolute oath offidelity one to the other, each with his own will and his own desire, --thisirredeemable contract of union between man and woman, --it was not always abinding sacrament. Often twisted and broken, men and women promising in thebelief of the best within them what was beyond their power to perform. There were those in that very chapel who had said these words and brokenthem, furtively or legally... With them, of course, it would be different, would be the best; for she conceived their love to be of another kind, --theenduring kind. Nevertheless, just here, while the priest of societypronounced the final words of union, something spoke within the woman'ssoul that it was a strange oath to be taking, a strange manner of makingtwo living beings one!

"And I pronounce you man and wife, " the words ran. Then the ministerhastened on into his little homily upon the marriage state. But the woman'sthought rested at those fateful words, --"man and wife, "--the knot of thecontract. There should fall a new light in her heart that would make herknow they were really one, having now been joined as the book said "in holywedlock. " From this sacramental union of persons there should issue to botha new spirit... 

Her husband was standing firm and erect, listening with all theconcentration of his mind to what the minister was saying--not tumultuouslydistracted--as though he comprehended the exact gravity of this contractinto which he was entering, as he might that of any other he could make, sure of his power to fulfil all, confident before Fate. She trembledstrangely. Did she know him, this other self? In the swift apprehension oflife's depths which came through her heightened mood she perceived thatultimate division lying between all human beings, that impregnable fortressof the individual soul.... It was all over. He looked tenderly at her. Herlips trembled with a serious smile, --yes, they would understand now!

The people behind them moved more audibly. The thing was done; the priest'swords of exhortation were largely superfluous. All else that concernedmarried life these two would have to find out for themselves. The thing wasdone, as ordained by the church, according to the rules of society. Now itwas for Man and Wife to make of it what they would or--could. 

The minister closed his book in dismissal. The groom offered his arm to thebride. Facing the chapelful she came out of that dim world of wonderwhither she had strayed. Her veil thrown back, head proudly erect, eyesmistily ranging above the onlookers, she descended the altar steps, gazingdown the straight aisle over the black figures, to the sunny village green, beyond into the vista of life! ... Triumphant organ notes beat through thechapel, as they passed between the rows of smiling faces, --familiar facesonly vaguely perceived, yet each with its own expression, its own reactionfrom this ceremony. She swept on deliberately, with the grace of her longstride, her head raised, a little smile on her open lips, her hand justtouching his, --going forward with him into life. 

Only two faces stood out from the others at this moment, --the dark, mischievous face of Nancy Lawton, smiling sceptically. Her dark, littleeyes seemed to say, 'Oh, you don't know yet!' And the other was the large, placid face of a blond woman, older than the bride, standing beside astolid man at the end of a pew. The serene, soft eyes of this woman weredim with tears, and a tender smile still lingered on her lips. She atleast, Alice Johnston, the bride's cousin, could smile through the tears--asmile that told of the sweetness in life..... 

At the door the frock-coated young ushers formed into double line throughwhich the couple passed. The village green outside was flooded withsunshine, checkered by drooping elm branches. Bells began to ring from thelibrary across the green and from the schoolhouse farther down. It wasover--the fine old barbaric ceremony, the passing of the irredeemablecontract between man and woman, the public proclamation of eternal union. Henceforth they were man and wife before the law, before their kind--oneand one, and yet not two. 

Thus together they passed out of the church. 

CHAPTER II

The company gathered within the chapel for the wedding now moved and talkedwith evident relief, each one expressing his feeling of the solemn service. 

"Very well done, very lovely!" the Senator was murmuring to the bride'smother, just as he might give an opinion of a good dinner or some neatbusiness transaction or of a smartly dressed woman. It was a function oflife successfully performed--and he nodded gayly to a pretty woman threerows away. He was handsome and gray-haired, long a widower, and evidentlyconsidered weddings to be an attractive, ornamental feature of social life. Mrs. Price, the bride's mother, intent upon escaping with the Colonel bythe side door and rejoining the bridal party at the house before the guestsarrived on foot, scarcely heeded the amiable Senator's remarks. This affairof her daughter's marriage was, like most events, a matter of engrossingdetails. The Colonel, in his usual gregarious manner, had strayed among theguests, forgetful of his duties, listening with bent head to congratulatoryremarks. She had to send her younger son, Vickers, after him where helingered with Farrington Beals, the President of the great Atlantic andPacific Railroad, in which his new son-in-law held a position. When theColonel finally dragged himself away from the pleasant things that his oldfriend Beals had to say about young Lane, he looked at his impatient wifewith his tender smile, as if he would like to pat her cheek and say, "Well, we've started them right, haven't we?"

The guests flowed conversationally towards the door and the sunny green, while the organ played deafeningly. But play as exultantly as it might, itcould not drown the babble of human voices. Every one wanted to utter thoseexcitable commonplaces that seem somehow to cover at such times deepmeanings. 

"What a perfect wedding!"

"How pretty it all was!"

"Not a hitch. "

"She looked the part. "

"Good fellow--nice girl--ought to be happy ... Well, old man, when is yourturn coming? ... Could hear every word they said ... Looked as though theymeant it, too! ... "

In an eddy of the centre aisle a tall, blond young woman with handsome, square shoulders and dark eyes stood looking about her calmly, as if shewere estimating the gathering, setting each one down at the proper socialvaluation, deciding, perhaps, in sum that they were a very "mixed lot, " oldfriends and new, poor and rich. A thin girl, also blond, with deep blueeyes, and a fine bony contour of the face, was swept by the stream near thesolitary observer and held out a hand:--

"Cornelia!"

"Margaret!"

"Isn't it ideal!" Margaret Lawton exclaimed, her nervous face still stirredby all that she had felt during the service, --"the day, the country, andthis dear little chapel!"

"Very sweet, " the large woman replied in a purring voice, properlymodulated for the sentiment expressed. "Isabelle made an impressive bride. "And these two school friends moved on towards the door. Cornelia Pallanton, still surveying the scene, nodded and said to her companion, "There's yourcousin Nannie Lawton. Her husband isn't here, I suppose? There are a goodmany St. Louis people. "

The guests were now scattered in little groups over the green, dawdling intalk and breathing happily the June-scented air. The stolid man and hisplacid wife who had sat near the rear had already started for the Colonel'shouse, following the foot-path across the fields. They walked silently sideby side, as if long used to wordless companionship. 

The amiable Senator and his friend Beals examined critically the littleGothic chapel, which had been a gift to his native town by the Colonel, aswell as the stone library at the other end of the green. "Nice idea ofPrice, " the Senator was saying, "handsome buildings--pleasant littlevillage, " and he moved in the direction of Miss Pallanton, who was alone. 

Down below in the valley, on the railroad siding, lay the special trainthat had brought most of the guests from New York that morning. The engineemitted little puffs of white smoke in the still noon, ready to carry itsload back to the city after the breakfast. About the library steps were thecarriages of those who had driven over from neighboring towns; the wholevillage had a disturbed and festal air. 

The procession was straggling across the village street through the stileand into the meadow, tramping down the thick young grass, up the slope tothe comfortable old white house that opened its broad verandas likehospitable arms. The President of the Atlantic and Pacific, deserted by theSenator, had offered his arm to a stern old lady with knotty hands partlyconcealed in lace gloves. Her lined face had grown serious in age andcontention with life. She clung stiffly to the arm of the railroadpresident, --proud, silent, and shy. She was _his_ mother. From her onemight conclude that the groom's people were less comfortably circumstancedthan the bride's--that this was not a marriage of ambition on the woman'spart. It was the first time Mrs. Lane had been "back east" since she hadleft her country home as a young bride. It was a proud moment, walking withher son's chief; but the old lady did not betray any elation, as shelistened to the kindly words that Beals found to say about her son. 

"A first-rate railroad man, Mrs. Lane, --he will move up rapidly. We can'tget enough of that sort. "

The mother, never relaxing her tight lips, drank it all in, treasured it asa reward for the hard years spent in keeping that boarding-house in Omaha, after the death of her husband, who had been a country doctor. 

"He's a good son, " she admitted as the eulogy flagged. "And he knows how toget on with all kinds of folks.... "

At their heels were Vickers Price and the thin Southern girl, MargaretLawton. Vickers, just back from Munich for this event, had managed to givethe conventional dress that he was obliged to wear a touch of strangeness, with an enormous flowing tie of delicate pink, a velvet waistcoat, andbroad-brimmed hat. The clothes and the full beard, the rippling chestnuthair and pointed mustache, showed a desire for eccentricity on the part ofthe young man that distinguished him from all the other well-dressed youngAmericans. He carried a thin cane and balanced a cigarette between hislips. 

"Yes, " he was saying, "I had to come over to see Isabelle married, but Ishall go back after a look around--not the place for me!" He laughed andwaved his cane towards the company with an ironic sense of hisinappropriateness to an American domestic scene. 

"You are a composer, --music, isn't it?" the girl asked, a flash in her blueeyes at the thought of youth, Munich, music. 

"I have written a few things; am getting ready, you know, " Vickers Priceadmitted modestly. 

Just there they were joined by a handsome, fashionably dressed man, hisface red with rapid walking. He touched his long, well-brushed blackmustache with his handkerchief as he explained:--

"Missed the train--missed the show--but got here in time for the fun, onthe express. "

He took his place beside the girl, whose color deepened and eyes turnedaway, --perhaps annoyed, or pleased?

"That's what you come for, isn't it?" she said, forcing a little joke. Noticing that the two men did not speak, she added hastily, "Don't you knowMr. Price, Mr. Vickers Price? Mr. Hollenby. "

The newcomer raised his silk hat, sweeping Vickers, who was fanning himselfwith his broad-brimmed felt, in a light, critical stare. Then Mr. Hollenbyat once appropriated the young woman's attention, as though he wouldindicate that it was for her sake he had taken this long, hot journey. 

 * * * * *

There were other little groups at different stages on the hill, --onegathered about a small, dark-haired woman, whose face burned duskily in theJune sun. She was Aline Goring, --the Eros of that schoolgirl band at St. Mary's who had come to see their comrade married. And there was ElsieBeals, --quite elegant, the only daughter of the President of the A. And P. The Woodyards, Percy and Lancey, classmates of Vickers at the university, both slim young men, wearing their clothes carelessly, --clearly not of theHollenby manner, --had attached themselves here. Behind them was Nan Lawton, too boisterous even for the open air. At the head of the procession, nownearly topping the hill beneath the house, was that silent married couple, the heavy, sober man and the serene, large-eyed woman, who did not minglewith the others. He had pointed out to her the amiable Senator andPresident Beals, both well-known figures in the railroad world where heworked, far down, obscurely, as a rate clerk. His wife looked at these twogreat ones, who indirectly controlled the petty destiny of the Johnstons, and squeezed her husband's hand more tightly, expressing thus many mixedfeelings, --content with him, pride and confidence in him, in spite of hishumble position in the race. 

"It's just like the Pilgrim's Progress, " she said with a little smile, looking backward at the stream. 

"But who is Christian?" the literal husband asked. Her eyes answered thatshe knew, but would not tell. 

 * * * * *

Just as each one had reflected his own emotion at the marriage, so eachone, looking up at the hospitable goal ahead, --that irregular, broad whitehouse poured over the little Connecticut hilltop, --had his word about theColonel's home. 

"No wonder they call it the Farm, " sneered Nan Lawton to the Senator. 

"It's like the dear old Colonel, the new and the old, " the Senatorsententiously interpreted. 

Beals, overhearing this, added, "It's poor policy to do things that way. Better to pull the old thing down and go at it afresh, --you save time andmoney, and have it right in the end. "

"It's been in the family a hundred years or more, " some one remarked. "TheColonel used to mow this field himself, before he took to making hardware. "

"Isabelle will pull it about their ears when she gets the chance, " Mrs. Lawton said. "The present-day young haven't much sentiment foruncomfortable souvenirs. "

Her cousin Margaret was remarking to Vickers, "What a good, homey sort ofplace, --like our old Virginia houses, --all but that great barn!"

It was, indeed, as the Senator had said, very like the Colonel, who couldspare neither the old nor the new. It was also like him to give Grafton anew stone library and church, and piece on rooms here and there to his ownhouse. In spite of these additions demanded by comfort there was somethingin the conglomeration to remind the Colonel, who had returned to Graftonafter tasting strife and success in the Middle West, of the plain home ofhis youth. 

"The dear old place!" Alice Johnston murmured to her husband. "It was nevermore attractive than to-day, as if it knew that it was marrying off an onlydaughter. " To her, too, the Farm had memories, and no new villa spread outspaciously in Italian, Tudor, or Classic style could ever equal this white, four-chimneyed New England mansion. 

On the west slope of the hill near the veranda a large tent had beenerected, and into this black-coated waiters were running excitedly to andfro around a wing of the house which evidently held the servant quarters. Just beyond the tent a band was playing a loud march. There was to bedancing on the lawn after the breakfast, and in the evening on the villagegreen for everybody, and later fireworks. The Colonel had insisted on thedancing and the fireworks, in spite of Vickers's jeers about pagan ritesand the Fourth of July. 

The bride and groom had already taken their places in the broad hall, whichbisected the old house. The guests were to enter from the south veranda, pass through the hall, and after greeting the couple gain the refreshmenttent through the library windows. The Colonel had worked it all out withthat wonderful attention to detail that had built up his great hardwarebusiness. Upstairs in the front bedrooms the wedding presents had beenarranged, and nicely ticketed with cards for the amusement of agedrelatives, --a wonderful assortment of silver and gold and glass, --anexhibition of the wide relationships of the contracting pair, at least ofthe wife. And through these rooms soft-footed detectives patrolled, examining the guests.... 

Isabelle Price had not wished her wedding to be of this kind, ordered so tospeak like the refreshments from Sherry and the presents from Tiffany, witha special train on the siding. When she and John had decided to be marriedat the old farm, she had thought of a country feast, --her St. Mary's girlsof course and one or two more, but quite to themselves! They were to walkwith these few friends to the little chapel, where the dull old villageparson would say the necessary words. The marriage over, and a simplebreakfast in the old house, --the scene of their love, --they were to rideoff among the hills to her camp on Dog Mountain, alone. And thus quietly, without flourish, they would enter the new life. But as happens to all suchpretty idylls, reality had forced her hand. Colonel Price's daughter couldnot marry like an eloping schoolgirl, so her mother had declared. Even Johnhad taken it as a matter of course, all this elaborate celebration, theguests, the special train, the overflowing house. And she had yielded herideal of having something special in her wedding, acquiescing in the "usualthing. "

But now that the first guests began to top the hill and enter the hall withwarm, laughing greetings, all as gay as the June sunlight, the women intheir fresh summer gowns, she felt the joy of the moment. "Isn't it jolly, so many of 'em!" she exclaimed to her husband, squeezing his arm gayly. Hetook it, like most things, as a matter of course. The hall soon filled withhigh tones and noisy laughter, as the guests crowded in from the lawn aboutthe couple, to offer their congratulations, to make their little jokes, andpremeditated speeches. Standing at the foot of the broad stairs, her veilthrown back, her fair face flushed with color and her lips parted in asmile, one arm about a thick bunch of roses, the bride made a bright spotof light in the dark hall. All those whirling thoughts, the depths to whichher spirit had descended during the service, had fled; she was excited bythis throng of smiling, joking people, by the sense of her role. She hadthe feeling of its being _her_ day, and she was eager to drink every dropin the sparkling cup. A great kindness for everybody, a sort of beamingsympathy for the world, bubbled up in her heart, making the repeated handsqueeze which she gave--sometimes a double pressure--a personal expressionof her emotion. Her flashing hazel eyes, darting into each face in turn asit came before her, seemed to say: 'Of course, I am the happiest woman inthe world, and you must be happy, too. It is such a good world!' While hervoice was repeating again and again, with the same tremulous intensity, "Thank you--it is awfully nice of you--I am so glad you are here!"

To the amiable Senator's much worn compliment, --"It's the prettiest weddingI have seen since your mother's, and the prettiest bride, too, "--sheblushed a pleased reply, though she had confessed to John only the nightbefore that the sprightly Senator was "horrid, --he has such a way ofsqueezing your hand, as if he would like to do more, "--to which the youngman had replied in his perplexity, due to the Senator's exalted position inthe A. And P. Board, "I suppose it's only the old boy's way of beingcordial. "

Even when Nannie Lawton came loudly with Hollenby--she had captured himfrom her cousin--and threw her arms about the bride, Isabelle did not drawback. She forgot that she disliked the gay little woman, with her muddyeyes, whose "affairs"--one after the other--were condoned "for herhusband's sake. " Perhaps Nannie felt what it might be to be as happy andproud as she was, --she was large, generous, comprehending at this moment. And she passed the explosive little woman over to her husband, who receivedher with the calm courtesy that never made an enemy. 

But when "her girls" came up the line, she felt happiest. Cornelia wasfirst, large, handsome, stately, her broad black hat nodding above thefeminine stream, her dark eyes observing all, while she slowly smiled tothe witticisms Vickers murmured in her ear. Every one glanced at MissPallanton; she was a figure, as Isabelle realized when she finally stoodbefore her, --a very handsome figure, and would get her due attention fromher world. They had not cared very much for "Conny" at St. Mary's, thoughshe was a handsome girl then and had what was called "a good mind. " Therewas something coarse in the detail of this large figure, the plentifulreddish hair, the strong, straight nose, --all of which the girls of St. Mary's had interpreted their own way, and also the fact that she had comefrom Duluth, --probably of "ordinary" people. Surely not a girl's girl, nora woman's woman! But one to be reckoned with when it came to men. Isabellewas conscious of her old reserve as she listened to Conny's piping, falsetto voice, --such a funny voice to come from that large person throughthat magnificent white throat. 

"It makes me so happy, dear Isabelle, " the voice piped; "it is all soideal, so exactly what it ought to be for you, don't you know?" And asPercy Woodyard bore her off--he had hovered near all the time--she smiledagain, leaving Isabelle to wonder what Conny thought would be "just right"for her. 

"You must hurry, Conny, " she called on over Vickers's head, "and make upyour mind; you are almost our last!"

"You know I never hurry, " the smiling lips piped languidly, and the largehat sailed into the library, piloted on either side by Woodyard andVickers. Isabelle had a twinge of sisterly jealousy at seeing her youngerbrother so persistently in the wake of the large, blond girl. Dear Vick, her own chum, her girl's first ideal of a man, fascinatingly developed byhis two years in Munich, must not go bobbing between Nan Lawton and Conny!

And here was Margaret Lawton--so different from her cousin's wife--with thedelicate, high brow, the firm, aristocratic line from temple to chin. Shewas the rarest and best of the St. Mary's set, and though Isabelle hadknown her at school only a year, she had felt curiosity and admiration forthe Virginian. Her low, almost drawling voice, which reflected a controlledspirit, always soothed her. The deep-set blue eyes had caught Isabelle'sglance at Vickers, and with an amused smile the Southern girl said, "He'sin the tide!"

Isabelle said, "I am so, so glad you could get here, Margaret. "

"I wanted to--very much. I made mother put off our sailing. "

"How is the Bishop?" she asked, as Margaret was pushed on. 

"Oh, happy, riding about the mountains and converting the poor heathen, whoprefer whiskey to religion. Mother's taking him to England this summer toshow him off to the foreign clergy. "

"And Washington?"

Margaret's thin, long lips curved ironically for answer. Hollenby, whoseemed to have recollected a purpose, was waiting for her at the librarydoor.... "Ah, my Eros!" Isabella exclaimed with delight, holding forth twohands to a small, dark young woman, with waving brown hair and large eyesthat were fixed on distant objects. 

"Eros with a husband and two children, " Aline Goring murmured, in her softcontralto. "You remember Eugene? At the Springs that summer?" The husband, a tall, smooth-shaven, young man with glasses and the delicate air of thesteam-heated American scholar bowed stiffly. 

"Of course! Didn't I aid and abet you two?"

"That's two years and a half ago, " Aline remarked, as if the simple wordscovered a multitude of facts about life. "We are on our way to St. Louis tosettle. "

"Splendid!" Isabelle exclaimed. "We shall have you again. Torso, where weare exiled for the present, is only a night's ride from St. Louis. "

Aline smiled that slow, warm smile, which seemed to come from the remoteinner heart of her dreamy life. Isabelle looked at her eagerly, searchingfor the radiant, woodsy creature she had known, that Eros, with her dreamy, passionate, romantic temperament, a girl whom girls adored and kissed andpetted, divining in her the feminine spirit of themselves. Surely, sheshould be happy, Aline, the beautiful girl made for love, poetic, tender. The lovely eyes were there, but veiled; the velvety skin had roughened; andthe small body was almost heavy. The wood nymph had been submerged inmatrimony. 

Goring was saying in a twinkling manner:--

"I've been reckoning up, Mrs. Lane. You are the seventh most intimate girlfriend Aline has married off the last two years. How many more of you arethere?"

Aline, putting her arms about the bride's neck, drew her face to her lipsand whispered:--

"Dearie, my darling! I hope you will be so happy, --that it will be all youcan wish!" After these two had disappeared into the library, where therewas much commotion about the punch-bowl, the bride wondered--were _they_happy? She had seen the engagement at Southern Springs, --the two mostecstatic, unearthly lovers she had ever known.... But now? ... 

Thus the stream of her little world flowed on, repeating its high-pitchednote of gratulation, of jocular welcome to the married state, as if to say, 'Well, now you are one of us--you've been brought in--this is life. ' Thatwas what these smiling people were thinking, as they welcomed the neophytesto the large vale of human experience. 'We have seen you through thisbusiness, started you joyously on the common path. And now what will youmake of it?' For the occasion they ignored, good naturedly, the stonesalong the road, the mistakes, the miserable failures that lined the path, assuming the bride's proper illusion of triumph and confidence.... Amongthe very last came the Johnstons, who had lingered outside while the moreboisterous ones pressed about the couple. Isabelle noticed that the largebrown eyes of the placid woman, who always seemed to her much older thanherself, were moist, and her face was serious when she said, "May it be allthat your heart desires--the Real Thing!"

A persistent aunt interrupted them here, and it was hours afterward whenIsabelle's thought came back to these words and dwelt on them. 'The realthing!' Of course, that was what it was to be, her marriage, --the woman'ssymbol of the Perfect, not merely Success (though with John they could notfail of worldly success), nor humdrum content--but, as Alice said, the realthing, --a state of passionate and complete union. Something in those mistybrown eyes, something in the warm, deep voice of the older woman, in theprayer-like form of the wish, sank deep into her consciousness. 

She turned to her husband, who was chatting with Fosdick, a large, heavyman with a Dr. Johnson head on massive shoulders. One fat hand leanedheavily on a fat club, for Fosdick was slightly lame and rolled in hisgait. 

"Isabelle, " he remarked with a windy sigh, "I salute my victor!"

Old Dick, Vickers's playmate in the boy-and-girl days, her playmate, too, --he had wanted to marry her for years, ever since Vick's freshman yearwhen he had made them a visit at the Farm. He had grown very heavy sincethen, --time which he had spent roving about in odd corners of the earth. Ashe stood there, his head bent mockingly before the two, Isabelle feltherself Queen once more, the--American woman who, having surveyed all, anddominated all within the compass of her little world, has chosen the One. But not Dickie, humorous and charming as he was. 

"How goes it, Dickie?"

"As always, " he puffed; "I come from walking or rather limping up and downthis weary earth and observing--men and women--how they go about to makethemselves miserable. "

"Stuff!"

"My dear friends, " he continued, placing both hands on the big cane, "youare about to undergo a new and wonderful experience. You haven't theslightest conception of what it is. You think it is love; but it is theholy state of matrimony, --a very different proposition--"

They interrupted him with laughing abuse, but he persisted, --a seriousundertone to his banter. "Yes, I have always observed the scepticism ofyouth, no matter what may be the age of the contracting parties and theirprevious experience, in this matter. But Love and Marriage are two distinctand entirely independent states of being, --one is the creation of God, theother of Society. I have observed that few make them coalesce. "

As relatives again interposed, Fosdick rolled off, ostentatiously thumpinghis stick on the floor, and made straight for the punch-bowl, where heseemed to meet congenial company. 

CHAPTER III

Meanwhile inside the great tent the commotion was at its height, most ofthe guests--those who had escaped the fascination of the punch-bowl--havingfound their way thither. Perspiring waiters rushed back and forth withsalad and champagne bottles, which were seized by the men and borne off tothe women waiting suitably to be fed by the men whom they had attached. Near the entrance the Colonel, with his old friends Beals and SenatorThomas, was surveying the breakfast scene, a contented smile on his kindface, as he murmured assentingly, "So--so. " He and the Senator had servedin the same regiment during the War, Price retiring as Colonel and theSenator as Captain; while the bridegroom's father, Tyringham Lane, had beenthe regimental surgeon. 

"What a good fellow Tyringham was, and how he would have liked to be here!"the Senator was saying sentimentally, as he held out a glass to berefilled. "Poor fellow!--he never got much out of his life; didn't know howto make the most of things, --went out there to that Iowa prairie after theWar. You say he left his widow badly off?"

The Colonel nodded, and added with pride, "But John has made that rightnow. "

The Senator, who had settled in Indianapolis and practised railroad lawuntil his clients had elevated him to the Senate, considered complacentlythe various dispensations of Providence towards men. He said generously:--

"Well, Tyringham's son has good blood, and it will tell. He will make hisway. We'll see to that, eh, Beals?" and the Senator sauntered over to alivelier group dominated by Cornelia Pallanton's waving black plumes. 

"Oh, marriage!" Conny chaffed, "it's the easiest thing a woman can do, isn't it? Why should one be in a hurry when it's so hard to go back?"

"Matrimony, " Fosdick remarked, "is an experiment where nobody's experiencecounts but your own. " He had been torn from the punch-bowl and thusreturned to his previous train of thought. 

"Is that why some repeat it so often?" Elsie Beals inquired. She had brokenher engagement the previous winter and had spent the summer hunting withIndian guides among the Canadian Rockies. She regarded herself as unusual, and turned sympathetically to Fosdick, who also had a reputation for beingodd. 

"So let us eat and be merry, " that young man said, seizing a pate and glassof champagne, "though I never could see why good people should make such anunholy rumpus when two poor souls decide to attempt the great experiment ofconverting illusion into reality. "

"Some succeed, " an earnest young man suggested. 

Conny, who had turned from the constant Woodyard to the voluble fat man, who might be a Somebody, remarked:--

"I suppose you don't see the puddles when you are in their condition. It'salways the belief that we are going to escape 'em that drives us all intoyour arms. "

"What I object to, " Fosdick persisted, feeding himself prodigiously, "isnot the fact, but this savage glee over it. It's as though a lot of cagedanimals set up a howl of delight every time the cage door was opened and anew pair was introduced into the pen. They ought to perform the weddingceremony in sackcloth and ashes, after duly fasting, accompanied by a fewfaithful friends garbed in black with torches. "

Conny gave him a cold, surface smile, setting down his talk as "young" andbeamed at the approaching Senator. 

"Oh, what an idea!" giggled a little woman. "If you can't dance at your ownwedding, you may never have another chance. "

Conny, though intent upon the Senator, kept an eye upon Woodyard, introducing him to the distinguished man, thinking, no doubt, that theChairman of the A. And P. Board might be useful to the young lawyer. Forwhatever she might be to women, this large blond creature with white neck, voluptuous lips, and slow gaze from childlike eyes had the power of drawingmales to her, a power despised and also envied by women. Those simple eyesseemed always to seek information about obvious matters. But behind theeyes Conny was thinking, 'It's rather queer, this crowd. And these Priceswith all their money might do so much better. That Fosdick is a sillyfellow. The Senator is worn of course, but still important!' And yet Conny, with all her sureness, did not know all her own mental processes. For she, too, was really looking for a mate, weighing, estimating men to that end, and some day she would come to a conclusion, --would take a man, Woodyard oranother, giving him her very handsome person, and her intelligence, inexchange for certain definite powers of brain and will. 

The bride and groom entered the tent at last. Isabelle, in a renewed glowof triumph, stepped over to the table and with her husband's assistanceplunged a knife into the huge cake, while her health was being drunk withcheers. As she firmly cut out a tiny piece, she exposed a thin butbeautifully moulded arm. 

"Handsome girl, " the Senator murmured in Conny's ear. "Must be some sorehearts here to-day. I don't see how such a beauty could escape until shewas twenty-six. But girls want their fling these days, same as the men!"

"Toast! Toast the bride!" came voices from all sides, while the waitershurried here and there slopping the wine into empty glasses. 

As the bride left the tent to get ready for departure, she caught sight ofMargaret Lawton in a corner of the veranda with Hollenby, who was bendingtowards her, his eyes fastened on her face. Margaret was looking far away, across the fields to where Dog Mountain rose in the summer haze. WasMargaret deciding _her_ fate at this moment, --attracted, repulsed, waitingfor the deciding thrill, while her eyes searched for the ideal of happinesson the distant mountain? She turned to look at the man, drawing back as hishand reached forward. So little, so much--woman's fate was in the makingthis June day, all about the old house, --attracting, repulsing, weighing, --unconsciously moulding destiny that might easily be momentous inthe outcome of the years.... 

When the bride came down, a few couples had already begun to dance, butthey followed the other guests to the north side where the carriage stoodready. Isabelle looked very smart in her new gown, a round travelling hatjust framing her brilliant eyes and dark hair. Mrs. Price followed herdaughter closely, her brows puckered in nervous fear lest something shouldbe forgotten. She was especially anxious about a certain small bag, and hadthe maid take out all the hand luggage to make sure it had not beenmislaid. 

Some of the younger ones led by Vickers pelted the couple with rice, whilethis delay occurred. It was a silly custom that they felt bound to follow. There was no longer any meaning in the symbol of fertility. Multiply and befruitful, the Bible might urge, following an ancient economic ideal ofhappiness. But the end of marriage no longer being this gross purpose, thesterile woman has at last come into honor! ... 

The bride was busy kissing a group of young women who had clustered abouther, --Elsie Beals, Aline, Alice Johnston, Conny. Avoiding Nannie Lawton'swide open arms, she jumped laughingly into the carriage, then turned for alast kiss from the Colonel. 

"Here, out with you Joe, " Vickers exclaimed to the coachman. "I'll drivethem down to the station. Quick now, --they mustn't lose the express!"

He bundled the old man from the seat, gathered up the reins with aflourish, and whipped the fresh horses. The bride's last look, as thecarriage shot through the bunch of oleanders at the gate, gathered in thegroup of waving, gesticulating men and women, and above them on the stepsthe Colonel, with his sweet, half-humorous smile, her mother at his side, already greatly relieved, and behind all the serious face of AliceJohnston, the one who knew the mysteries both tender and harsh, and whocould still call it all good! ... 

Vickers whisked them to the station in a trice, soothing his excitement bydriving diabolically, cutting corners and speeding down hill. At theplatform President Beals's own car was standing ready for them, the twoporters at the steps. The engine of the special was to take them to thejunction where the "Bellefleur" would be attached to the night express, --aspecial favor for the President of the A. And P. The Senator had insistedon their having his camp in the Adirondacks for a month. Isabelle wouldhave preferred her own little log hut in the firs of Dog Mountain, whichshe and Vickers had built. There they could be really quite alone, forcedto care for themselves. But the Colonel could not understand her bit ofsentiment, and John thought they ought not to offend the amiable Senator, who had shown himself distinctly friendly. So they were to enter upon theirnew life enjoying these luxuries of powerful friends. 

The porters made haste to put the bags in the car, and the engine snorted. 

"Good-by, Mr. Gerrish, " Isabelle called to the station agent, who waswatching them at a respectful distance. Suddenly he seemed to be an oldfriend, a part of all that she was leaving behind. 

"Good-by, Miss Price--Mrs. Lane, " he called back. "Good luck to you!"

"Dear old Vick, " Isabelle murmured caressingly, "I hate most to leave youbehind. "

"Better stay, then, --it isn't too late, " he joked. "We could elope with theponies, --you always said you would run off with me!"

She hugged him more tightly, burying her head in his neck, shaking himgently. "Dear old Vick! Don't be a fool! And be good to Dad, won't you?"

"I'll try not to abuse him. "

"You know what I mean--about staying over for the summer. Oh dear, dear!"There was a queer sob in her voice, as if now for the first time she knewwhat it was. The old life was all over. Vick had been so much of that! Andshe had seen little or nothing of him since his return from Europe, soabsorbed had she been in the bustle of her marriage. Up there on DogMountain which swam in the haze of the June afternoon they had walked onsnowshoes one cold January night, over the new snow by moonlight, talkingmarvellously of all that life was to be. She believed then that she shouldnever marry, but remain always Vick's comrade, --to guide him, to share histriumphs. Now she was abandoning that child's plan. She shook with nervoussobs. 

"The engineer says we must start, dear, " Lane suggested. "We have only justtime to make the connection. "

Vickers untwisted his sister's arms from his neck and placed them gently inher husband's hands. 

"Good-by, girl, " he called. 

Sinking into a chair near the open door, Isabelle gazed back at the hillsof Grafton until the car plunged into a cut. She gave a long sigh. "We'reoff!" her husband said joyously. He was standing beside her, one handresting on her shoulder. 

"Yes, dear!" She took his strong, muscled hand in hers. But when he triedto draw her to him, she shrank back involuntarily, startled, and looked athim with wide-open eyes as if she would read Destiny in him, --the Man, herhusband. 

For this was marriage, not the pantomime they had lived through all thatday. That was demanded by custom; but now, alone with this man, his eyesalight with love and desire, his lips caressing her hair, his hands drawingher to him, --this was marriage!

Her eyes closed as if to shut out his face, --"Don't, don't!" she murmuredvaguely. Suddenly she started to her feet, her eyes wide open, and she heldhim away from her, looking into him, looking deep into his soul. 

CHAPTER IV

It was a hot, close night. After the Bellefleur had been coupled to theWestern express at the junction, Lane had the porters make up a bed forIsabelle on the floor of the little parlor next the observation platform, and here at the rear of the long train, with the door open, she laysleepless through the night hours, listening to the rattle of the trucks, the thud of heavy wheels on the rails, disturbed only when the car wasshifted to the Adirondack train by the blue glare of arc lights and phantomfigures rushing to and fro in the pallid night. 

The excitement of the day had utterly exhausted her; but her mind wasextraordinarily alive with impressions, --faces and pictures from this greatday of her existence, her marriage. And out of all these crowding imagesemerged persistently certain ones, --Aline, with the bloom almost gone, theworn air of something carelessly used. That was due to the children, tocares, --the Gorings were poor and the two years abroad must have been astrain. All the girls at St. Mary's had thought that marriage ideal, madeall of love. For there was something of the poet in Eugene Goring, the slimscholar, walking with raised head and speaking with melodious voice. He wasa girl's ideal.... And then came Nan Lawton, with her jesting tone, andsly, half-shut eyes. Isabelle remembered how brilliant Nan's marriage was, how proud she herself had been to have a part in it. Nan's face was blottedby Alice Johnston's with her phlegmatic husband. She was happy, serene, butold and acquainted with care. 

Why should she think of them, of any other marriage? Hers was to bedifferent, --oh, yes, quite exceptional and perfect, with an intimacy, amutual helpfulness.... The girls at St. Mary's had all had their emotionalexperiences, which they confessed to one another; and she had had hers, ofcourse, like her affair with Fosdick; but so innocent, so merely kittenishthat they had almost disappeared from memory. These girls at St. Mary'sread poetry, and had dreams of heroes, in the form of football players. They all thought about marriage, coming as they did from well-to-doparents, whose daughters might be expected to marry. Marriage, men, position in the world, --all that was their proper inheritance. 

After St. Mary's there had been two winters in St. Louis, --her first realdinners and parties, her first real men. Then a brief season in Washingtonas Senator Thomas's guest, where the horizon, especially the man part ofit, had considerably widened. She had made a fair success in Washington, thanks to her fresh beauty and spirit, and also, she was frank to confess, thanks to the Senator's interest and the reputation of her father's wealth. Then had come a six months with her mother and Vickers in Europe, fromwhich she returned abruptly to get engaged, to begin life seriously. 

These experimental years had seemed to her full of radiant avenues, any oneof which she was free to enter, and for a while she had gone joyously on, discovering new avenues, pleasing herself with trying them allimaginatively. At the head of all these avenues had stood a man, of course. She could recall them all: the one in St. Louis who had followed her toWashington, up the Nile, would not be turned away. Once he had touched her, taken her hand, and she had felt cold, --she knew that his was not her way. In Washington there had been a brilliant congressman whom the Senatorapproved of, --an older man. She had given him some weeks of puzzleddeliberation, then rejected him, as she considered sagely, because he spokeonly to her mind. Perhaps the most dangerous had been the Austrian whom shehad met in Rome. She almost yielded there; but once when they were alonetogether she had caught sight of depths in him, behind his black eyes andsmiling lips, that made her afraid, --deep differences of race. The Priceswere American in an old-fashioned, clean, plain sense. So when hepersisted, she made her mother engage passage for home and fled with thefeeling that she must put an ocean between herself and this man, fled tothe arms of the man she was to marry, who somehow in the midst of his busylife managed to meet her in New York. 

But why him? Out of all these avenues, her possibilities of various fate, why had she chosen him, the least promising outwardly? Was it done in amood of reaction against the other men who had sought her? He was mostunlike them all, with a background of hard struggle, with limitationsinstead of privileges such as they had. The Colonel's daughter couldunderstand John Lane's persistent force, --patient, quiet, sure. Sheremembered his shy, inexperienced face when her father first brought him tothe house for dinner. She had thought little of him then, --the Colonel wasalways bringing home some rough diamond, --but he had silently absorbed heras he did everything in his path, and selected her, so to speak, as heselected whatever he wanted. And after that whenever she came back to herfather's home from her little expeditions into the world, he was alwaysthere, and she came to know that he wanted her, --was waiting until hismoment should come. It came. 

Never since then had she had a regret for those possibilities that had beenhers, --for those other men standing at the other avenues and inviting her. From the moment that his arms had held her, she knew that he was thebest, --so much stronger, finer, simpler than any other. She was proud thatshe had been able to divine this quality and could prefer real things tosham. During the engagement months she had learned, bit by bit, the storyof his struggle, what had been denied to him of comfort and advantage, whathe had done for himself and for his mother. She yearned to give him what hehad never had, --pleasure, joy, the soft suavities of life, what she had hadalways. 

Now she was his! Her wandering thoughts came back to that central fact. 

Half frightened, she drew the blanket about her shoulders and listened. Hehad been so considerate of her, --had left her here to rest after makingsure of her comfort and gone forward to the stuffy stateroom to sleep, divining that she was not yet ready to accept him; that if he took her now, he should violate something precious in her, --that she was not fully won. She realized this delicate instinct and was grateful to him. Of course shewas his, --only his; all the other avenues had been closed forever by herlove for him, her marriage to him. Ah, that should be wonderful for themboth, all the years that were to come! Nevertheless, here on the threshold, her wayward soul had paused the merest moment to consider those otheravenues, what they might have offered of experience, of knowledge, had shetaken any other one of them. Were she here with another than him, destiny, her inmost self, the whole world of being would be changed, would be otherthan it was to be! What was that mysterious power that settled fate on itsgrooves? What were those other lives within her soul never to be lived, thelives she might have lived? Bewildered, weary, she stretched out her armsdreamily to life, and with parted lips sank into slumber.... 

The sun was streaming through the open door; the train had come to a halt. Isabelle awoke with a start, afraid. Her husband was bending over her andshe stared up directly into his amused eyes, looked steadily at him, remembering now all that she had thought the night before. This was heravenue--this was _he_ ... Yet she closed her eyes as he bent still nearerto kiss her neck, her temples, her lips. Like a frightened child she drewthe clothes close about her, and turned from his eager embraces. Beyond hisface she saw a line of straight, stiff firs beside the track, and the bluefoot-hills through which the train was winding its way upwards to themountains. She stretched herself sleepily, murmuring:--

"Dear, I'm so tired! Is it late?"

"Ten o'clock. We're due in half an hour. I had to wake you. "

"In half an hour!" She fled to the dressing-room, putting him off with afleeting kiss. 

One of the Senator's guides met them at the station with a buckboard. Allthe way driving upwards through the woods to the camp they were very gay. It was like one of those excursions she used to take with Vickers when hewas in his best, most expansive mood, alternately chaffing and petting her. Lane was in high spirits, throwing off completely that sober self whichmade him so weighty in his world, revealing an unexpected boyishness. Hejoked with the guide, talked fishing and shooting. With the deep breaths ofmountain air he expanded, his eyes flashing a new fire of joy at sight ofthe woods and streams. Once when they stopped to water the horses he seizedthe drinking-cup and dashed up the slope to a spring hidden among thetrees. He brought back a brimming cupful of cold water, which she emptied. Then with a boyish, chivalrous smile he put his lips to the spot where shehad drunk and drained the last drop. "That's enough for me!" he said, andthey laughed self-consciously. His homage seemed to say that thus throughlife he would be content with what she left him to drink, --absurd fancy, but at this moment altogether delightful.... Later she rested, pillowingher head on his shoulder, covered by his coat, while the trap jolted onthrough the woods between high hills. Now and then he touched her face withthe tips of his strong fingers, brushing away the wandering threads ofhair. Very peaceful, happy, feeling that it was all as she would havewished it, she shut her eyes, content to rest on this comrade, so strongand so gentle. Life would be like this, always. 

The Senator's camp was a camp only in name, of course; in fact it was anelaborate and expensive rustic establishment on a steep bluff above alittle mountain lake. The Japanese cook had prepared a rich dinner, and thechampagne was properly iced. The couple tiptoed about the place, looking ateach other in some dismay, and John readily fell in with her suggestionthat they should try sleeping in the open, with a rough shelter ofboughs, --should make their first nest for themselves. The guide took themto a spot some distance up the lake and helped them cut the fir boughs, allbut those for the bed, which they insisted upon gathering for themselves. After bringing up the blankets and the bags he paddled back to the camp, leaving them to themselves in the solitude of the woods, under the black, star-strewn sky. 

Alone with him thus beside their little fire her heart was full of dreamand content, of peace and love. They two seemed to have come up out of theworld to some higher level of life. After the joyous day this solitude ofthe deep forest was perfect. When the fire had died down to the embers, hecircled her with his arms and kissed her. Although her body yielded to hisstrong embrace her lips were cold, hard, and her eyes answered his passionwith a strange, aloof look, as if her soul waited in fear.... She knew whatmarriage was to be, although she had never listened to the allusionswhispered among married women and more experienced girls. Something in thesex side of the relations between men and women had always made her shrink. She was not so much pure in body and soul, as without sex, unborn. She knewthe fact of nature, the eternal law of life repeating itself through desireand passion; but she realized it remotely, only in her mind, as somenecessary physiological mechanism of living, like perspiration, fatigue, hunger. But it had not spoken in her body, in her soul; she did not feelthat it ever could speak to her as it was speaking in the man's lightedeyes, in his lips. So now as always she was cold, tranquil beneath herlover's kisses. 

And later on their bed of boughs, with her husband's arms about her, hisheart throbbing against her breast, his warm breath covering her neck, shelay still, very still, --aloof, fearful of this mystery to be revealed, alittle weary, wishing that she were back once more in the car or in her ownroom at the Farm, for this night, to return on the morrow to her comradefor another joyous, free day. 

"My love! ... Come to me! ... I love you, love you!" ... 

The passionate tone beat against her ears, yet roused no thrillingresponse. The trembling voice, the intensity of the worn old words comingfrom him, --it was all like another man suddenly appearing in the guise ofone she thought she knew so well! The taut muscles of his powerful armpressing against her troubled her. She would have fled, --why could one belike this! Still she caressed his face and hair, kissing him gently. Oh, yes, she loved him, --she was his! He was her husband. ' Nevertheless shecould not meet him wholly in this inmost intimacy, and her heart wastroubled. If he could be content to be her companion, her lover! But thisother thing was the male, the something which made all men differ from allwomen in the crisis of emotion--so she supposed--and must be endured. Shelay passive in his arms, less yielding than merely acquiescent, drawn inupon herself to something smaller than she was before.... 

When he slept at her side, his head pillowed close to hers on the fragrantfir, she still lay awake, her eyes staring up at the golden stars, stillfearful, uncomprehending. At last she was his, as he would haveher, --wholly his, so she said, seeking comfort, --and thus kissing his brow, with a long, wondering sigh she fell asleep by his side. 

In the morning they dipped into the cold black lake, and as they paddledback to the camp for breakfast while the first rays of the warm sun shonethrough the firs in gold bars, she felt like herself once more, --acompanion ready for a frolic. The next morning Lane insisted on cookingtheir breakfast, for he was a competent woodsman. She admired the deft wayin which he built his little fire and toasted the bacon. In the undress ofthe woods he showed at his best, --self-reliant, capable. There followed amonth of lovely days which they spent together from sunrise to starlight, walking, fishing, canoeing, swimming, --days of fine companionship when theylearned the human quality in each other. He was strong, buoyant, perfectlysure of himself. No emergency could arise where he would be found wantingin the man's part. The man in him she admired, --it was what first hadattracted her, --was proud of it, just as he was proud of her lithe figure, her beauty, her gayety, and her little air of worldliness. She began toassume that this was all of marriage, at least the essential part of it, and that the other, the passionate desire, was something desired by the manand to be avoided by the woman. 

They liked their guide, one of those American gypsies, half poacher, halffarmer. He kept a wife and family in a shack at the foot of the lake, andIsabelle, with a woman's need for the natural order of life, sought out andmade friends with the wild little brood. The woman had been a mill-hand, discovered by the woodsman on a chance visit to the town where she worked, and made his wife, his woman. Not yet thirty, she had had eight children, and another was coming. Freckled, with a few wisps of thin blond hair, herfront teeth imperfect, she was an untidy, bedraggled object, used andprematurely aged. Nevertheless the guide seemed attached to her, and whenon a Sunday the family went down to the settlement, following the trailthrough the camp, Isabelle could see him help the woman at the wire fence, carrying on one arm the youngest child, trailing his gun in the other hand. 

"He must care for her!" Isabelle remarked. 

"Why, of course. Why not?" her husband asked. 

"But think--" It was all she could say, not knowing how to put into wordsthe mournful feeling this woman with her brood of young gave her. What joy, what life for herself could such a creature have? Isabelle, her imaginationfull of comfortable houses with little dinner parties, pretty furniture, books, theatres, charity committees, --all that she conceived made up aproperly married young woman's life, --could not understand the existence ofthe guide's wife. She was merely the man's woman, a creature to give himchildren, to cook the food, to keep the fire going. He had the woods, thewild things he hunted; he had, too, his time of drink and rioting; but shewas merely his drudge and the instrument of his animal passion. Well, civilization had put a few milestones between herself and Molly Sewall! Inthe years to come her mind would revert often to this family as she saw itfiling down the path to the settlement, the half-clothed children peepingshyly at her, the woman trailing an old shawl from her bent shoulders, theman striding on ahead with his gun and his youngest baby, careless so longas there was a fire, a bit of food, and the forest to roam in.... 

So passed these days of their honeymoon, each one perfect, except for theoccasional disquieting presence of passion, of unappeasable desire in theman. This male fire was as mysterious, as inexplicable to her as that firstnight, --something to be endured forgivingly, but feared, almost hated forits fierce invasion of her. If her husband could only take her ascompanion, --the deep, deep friend, the first and best for the long journeyof life! Perhaps some day that would content him; perhaps this flower ofpassion came only at first, to be subdued by the work of life. She neverdreamed that some day she herself might change, might be waked by passion. And yet she knew that she loved her husband, yearned to give him all thathe desired. Taking his face between her hands, she would kiss it gently, tenderly, as a mother might kiss a hot, impulsive child trying to still arestless spirit within. 

This mystery of passion! It swept over the man, transfiguring him as thesummer storm swept across the little lake, blackening the sky with shadowsthrough which the lightning played fearsomely. She saw this face hot withdesire of her, as the face of a stranger, --another one than the strong, self-contained man she had married, --a face with strange animal andspiritual depths in it, all mixed and vivified. It was the brute, she saidto herself, and feared. Brute and God lie close together; but she could notsee the God, --felt only the fury of the brute. 

Like the storm it passed off, leaving him as she loved him, her tender andworshipping husband. It never entered her thought that she might love anyman more than she loved him, that perhaps some day she would long for apassion to meet her own heart. She saw now no lack in her cold limbs, herhard lips, her passionless eyes. She was still Diana, --long, shapely, muscular. In her heart she loved this Diana self, so aloof from desire!

The last night of their stay in the mountains she revolved all these thingsin her mind as they lay side by side on their fir couch, he asleep in adeep, dreamless fatigue, she alert and tense after the long day in thespirituous air, the night wind sighing to her from the upper branches ofthe firs. To-morrow they would start for the West, to begin the prose oflife. Suddenly a thought flashed over her that stopped the beat of herpulse, --she might already have conceived! She did not wish to escape havingchildren, at least one or two; she knew that it was to be expected, that itwas necessary and good. He would want his child and she also, and herfather and mother would be made happy by children. But her heart said, --notyet, already. Something in which her part had been so slight! She felt theinjustice of Nature that let conception come to a woman indifferently, merely of desire in man and acquiescence in woman. How could that be! Howcould woman conceive so blindly? The child should be got with joy, shouldflower from a sublime moment of perfect union when the man and the womanwere lifted out of themselves to some divine pinnacle of experience, ofsoul and body union and self-effacement. Then conception would be but thecarrying over of their deep yearning, each for the other, the hunger ofsouls and bodies to create. 

Now she saw that it could be otherwise, as perhaps with her this verymoment: that Nature took the seed, however it might fall, and nourished itwherever it fell, and made of it, regardless of human will, the NewLife, --heedless of the emotion of the two that were concerned in theprocess. For the first time she saw that pitiless, indifferent face ofNature, intent only on the Result, the thing created, scorning thespiritual travail of the creator, ignoring any great revelation of the manand the woman that would seem to count for so much in this process oflife-making. Thus a drunken beast might beget his child in the body of aloathing woman, blind souls sowing life blindly for a blind future. 

The idea clutched her like fear: she would defy this fate that would useher like any other piece of matrix, merely to bear the seed and nourish itfor a certain period of its way, one small step in the long process. Herheart demanded more than a passive part in the order of Nature. Her soulneeded its share from the first moment of conception in making that whichshe was to give to the race. Some day a doctor would explain to her thatshe was but the soil on which the fertile germ grew like a vegetable, without her will, her consent, her creating soul! But she would reject thatcoarse interpretation, --the very blasphemy of love. 

And here, at this point, as she lay in the dark beneath the sighing firs, it dawned in her dimly that something was wanting in her marriage, in theunion with the man she had chosen. She had taken him of her own freechoice; she was willingly his; she would bear his children if they came. Her body and her soul were committed to him by choice, and by that ceremonyof marriage before the people in the chapel, --to take her part with him inthe endless process of Fate, the continuance of life. 

Nevertheless, lying there in full contemplation of this new life that mightalready be putting its clutch upon her life, to suck from her its ownbeing, she rebelled at it all. Her heart cried for her part, her very own, for that mysterious exaltation that should make her really one with thefather in the act of creation, in the fulfilment of Love. And somehow sheknew assuredly that this could not be, not with this man by her side, notwith her husband.... 

She turned to him, pillowed there at her side, one hand resting fondly onher arm. Her eyes stared at him through the darkness, trying to read thefamiliar features. Did he, too, know this? Did he feel that it wasimpossible ever to be really one with her? Did he suspect the terribledefeat she was suffering now? A tear dropped from her eye and fell on theupturned face of the sleeper. He moved, murmured, "dearest, " and settledback into his deep sleep; taking his hand from her arm. With a little cryshe fell on him and kissed him, asking his forgiveness for the mistakebetween them. She put her head close to his, her lips to his lips; for shewas his and yet not his, --a strange division separating them, a cleavagebetween their bodies and their souls. 

"Why did we not know?" something whispered within. But she answered herselfmore calmly, --"It will all come right in the end--it must come right--forhis sake!"

CHAPTER V

When young John Lane first came to St. Louis to work as a clerk in thetraffic department of the Atlantic and Pacific, he had called on ColonelPrice at his office, a dingy little room in the corner of the second storyof the old brick building which had housed the wholesale hardware businessof Parrott and Price for a generation. The old merchant had received theyoung man with the pleasant kindliness that kept his three hundredemployees always devoted to him. 

"I knew your father, sir!" he said, half-closing his eyes and leaning backin his padded old office chair. "Let me see--it was in sixty-two in campbefore Vicksburg. I went to consult him about a boil on my leg. It was abad boil, --it hurt me.... Your father was a fine man--What are you doing inSt. Louis?" he concluded abruptly, looking out of his shrewd blue eyes atthe fresh-colored young man whose strong hands gripped squarely the arms ofhis chair. 

And from that day Lane knew that the Colonel never lost sight of him. Whenhis chance came, as in time it did come through one of the mutations of thegreat corporation, he suspected that the old hardware merchant, who was aclose friend of the chief men in the road, had spoken the needed word tolift the clerk out of the rut. At any rate the Colonel had not forgottenthe son of Tyringham Lane, and the young man had often been to thegenerous, ugly Victorian house, --built when the hardware business made itsfirst success. 

Nevertheless, when, three years later John Lane made another afternoonvisit to that dingy office in the Parrott and Price establishment, hishands trembed nervously as he sat waiting while the Colonel scrawled hissignature to several papers. 

"Well, John!" the old man remarked finally, shoving the papers towards thewaiting stenographer. "How's railroadin' these days?"

"All right, " Lane answered buoyantly. "They have transferred me to theIndiana division, headquarters at Torso--superintendent of the Torso andToledo. "

"Indeed! But you'll be back here some day, eh?"

"I hope so!"

"That's good!" The Colonel smiled sympathetically, as he always did when hecontemplated energetic youth, climbing the long ladder with a firm grip oneach rung. 

"I came to see you about another matter, " Lane began hesitantly. 

"Anything I can do for you?"

"Yes, sir; I want to marry your daughter, --and I'd like you to know it. "

The old merchant's face became suddenly grave, the twinkle disappearingfrom his blue eyes. He listened thoughtfully while the young man explainedhimself. He was still a poor man, of course; his future was to be made. Buthe did not intend to remain poor. His salary was not much to offer a girllike the Colonel's daughter; but it would go far in Torso--and it was thefirst step. Finally he was silent, well aware that there was smallpossibility that he should ever be a rich man, as Colonel Price was, andthat it was presumptuous of him to seek to marry his daughter, andtherefore open to mean interpretation. But he felt that the Colonel was notone to impute low motives. He knew the very real democracy of thesuccessful merchant, who never had forgotten his own story. 

"What does Belle say?" the Colonel asked. 

"I should not have come here if I didn't think--" the young man laughed. 

"Of course!"

Then the Colonel pulled down the top of his desk, signifying that the day'sbusiness was done. 

"We have never desired what is called a good match for our girl, " heremarked slowly in reply to a further plea from Lane. "All we want is thebest;" he laid grave emphasis on this watchword. "And the best is thatIsabelle should be happy in her marriage. If she loves the man she marries, she must be that.... And I don't suppose you would be here if you weren'tsure you could make her love you enough to be happy!"

The old man's smile returned for a fleeting moment, and then he mused. 

"I am afraid it will be hard for her to settle down in a place likeTorso--after all she's had, " Lane conceded. "But I don't expect that Torsois the end of my rope. I shall give her a better chance than that, I hope. "

The Colonel nodded sympathetically. 

"I shouldn't consider it any hardship for my daughter to live in Torso orin any other place--if she has a good husband and loves him. That is all, my boy!"

Lane, who realized the grades of a plutocratic democracy better than threeyears before, and knew the position of the Prices in the city, comprehendedthe splendid simplicity, the single-mindedness of the man, who could thuscompletely ignore considerations of wealth and social position in themarriage of his only daughter. 

"I shall do my best, sir, to make her happy all her life!" the young manstammered. 

"I know you will, my boy, and I think you will succeed, if she loves you asyou say she does. "

Then the Colonel took his hat from the nail behind the door, and the twomen continued their conversation in the street. They did not turn up townto the club and residence quarter, but descended towards the river, passingon their way the massive skeleton of the ten-story building that was tohouse, when completed, the Parrott and Price business. It rose in the smokysunset, stretching out spidery tendons of steel to the heavens, and fromits interior came a mighty clangor. The Colonel paused to look at the newbuilding, --the monument of his success as a merchant. 

"Pretty good? Corbin's doing it, --he's the best in the country, they tellme. "

Soon they kept on past the new building into an old quarter of the city, the Colonel apparently having some purpose that guided his devious coursethrough these unattractive streets. 

"There!" he exclaimed at last, pointing across a dirty street to a shabbylittle brick house. "That's the place where Isabelle's mother and I startedin St. Louis. We had a couple of rooms over there the first winter. Thestore was just a block further west. It's torn down now. I passed some ofthe best days of my life in those rooms on the second story.... It isn'tthe outside that counts, my boy!" The Colonel tucked his hand beneath theyoung man's arm, as they turned back to the newer quarters of the city. 

Mrs. Price, it should be said, did not accept Lane's suit as easily as theColonel. Her imagination had been expanded by that winter in Washington, and though she was glad that Isabelle had not accepted any of "thoseforeigners, " yet Harmony Price had very definite ideas of the position thatthe Colonel's daughter might aspire to in America.... But her objectionscould not stand before the Colonel's flat consent and Isabelle's decision. 

"They'll be a great deal better off than we were, " her husband remindedher. 

"That's no reason why Belle should have to start where we did, or anywherenear it!" his wife retorted. What one generation had been able to gain inthe social fight, it seemed to her only natural that the next should atleast hold. 

The Colonel gave the couple their new home in Torso, selecting, with a fineeye for real estate values, a large "colonial" wooden house with amplegrounds out beyond the smoke of the little city, near the new country club. Mrs. Price spent an exciting three months running back and forth betweenNew York, St. Louis, and Torso furnishing the new home. Isabelle's liberalallowance was to continue indefinitely, and beyond this the Colonelpromised nothing, now or later; nor would Lane have accepted more from hishand. It was to the Torso house that the Lanes went immediately after theirmonth in the Adirondacks. 

 * * * * *

Torso, Indiana, is one of those towns in the Mississippi Valley which makesmore impression the farther from New York one travels. New York has neverheard of it, except as it appears occasionally on a hotel register amongother queer places that Americans confess to as home. At Pittsburg it is around black spot on the map, in the main ganglia of the great A. And P. Andthe junction point of two other railroads. At Cincinnati it is a commercialcentre of considerable importance, almost a rival. While Torso to Torso isthe coming pivot of the universe. 

It is an old settlement--some families with French names still own thelarge distilleries--on the clay banks of a sluggish creek in the southernpart of the state, and there are many Kentuckians in its population. Nourished by railroads, a division headquarters of the great A. And P. , near the soft-coal beds, with a tin-plate factory, a carpet factory, acarriage factory, and a dozen other mills and factories, Torso is a blacksmudge in a flat green landscape from which many lines of electric railwayradiate forth along the country roads. And along the same roads across thereaches of prairie, over the swelling hills, stalk towering poles, bearingmany fine wires glistening in the sunlight and singing the importance ofTorso to the world at large. 

The Lanes arrived at night, and to Isabelle the prairie heavens seemed darkand far away, the long broad streets with their bushy maple trees empty, and the air filled with hoarse plaints, the rumbling speech of therailroad. She was homesick and fearful, as they mounted the steps to thenew house and pushed open the shining oak door that stuck and smelled ofvarnish. The next morning Lane whisked off on a trolley to the A. And P. Offices, while Isabelle walked around the house, which faced the mainnorthern artery of Torso. From the western veranda she could see the roofof the new country club through a ragged group of trees. On the other sidewere dotted the ample houses of Torso aristocracy, similar to hers, as sheknew, finished in hard wood, electric-lighted, telephoned, with many baths, large "picture" windows of plate glass, with potted ferns in them, and muchthe same furniture, --wholesome, comfortable "homes. " Isabelle, turning backto her house to cope with the three Swedes that her mother had sent on fromSt. Louis, had a queer sense of anti-climax. She swept the landscape with acritical eye, feeling she knew it all, even to what the people were sayingat this moment in those large American-Georgian mansions; what Torso wasdoing at this moment in its main street.... No, it could not be for theLanes for long, --that was the conviction in her heart. Their destiny wouldbe larger, fuller than any to be found in Torso. Just what she meant by a"large, full life, " she had never stopped to set down; but she was sure itwas not to be found here in Torso. 

Here began, however, the routine of her married life. Each morning shewatched her husband walk down the broad avenue to the electric car, --alert, strong, waving his newspaper to her as he turned the corner. Each afternoonshe waited for him at the same place, or drove down to the office with theKentucky horses that she had bought, to take him for a drive before dinner. He greeted her each time with the same satisfied smile, apparently notwilted by the long hours in a hot office. There was a smudged, work-a-dayappearance to his face and linen, the mark of Torso, the same mark that themill-hands across the street from the A. And P. Offices brought home totheir wives.... Thus the long summer days dragged. For distraction therewas a mutiny in the crew of Swedish servants, but Isabelle, with hermother's instinct for domestic management, quickly produced order, in spiteof the completely servantless state of Torso. She would telegraph to St. Louis for what she wanted and somehow always got it. The house ran, --thatwas her business. It was pretty and attractive, --that was also herbusiness. But this woman's work she tossed off quickly. Then what? Shepottered in the garden a little, but when the hot blasts of prairie heat inmid-August had shrivelled all the vines and flowers and cooked the bedsinto slabs of clay, she retired from the garden and sent to St. Louis forthe daily flowers. She read a good deal, almost always novels, in the vaguebelief that she was "keeping up" with modern literature, and she played attranslating some German lyrics. 

Then people began to call, --the wives of the Torso great, her neighbors inthose ample mansions scattered all about the prairie. These she reported toJohn with a mocking sense of their oddity. 

"Mrs. Fraser came to-day. What is she? Tin-plate or coal?"

"He's the most important banker here, " her husband explained seriously. 

"Oh, --well, she asked me to join the 'travel-class. ' They are going throughthe Holy Land. What do you suppose a 'travel-class' is?"... 

Again it was the wife of the chief coal operator, Freke, "who wanted me toknow that she always got her clothes from New York. " She added gently, "Ithink she wished to find out if we are fit for Torso society. I did my bestto give her the impression we were beneath it. "... 

These people, all the "society" of Torso, they met also at the countryclub, where they went Sundays for a game of golf, which Lane was learning. The wife of the A. And P. Superintendent could not be ignored by Torso, andso in spite of Isabelle's efforts there was forming around her a sociallife. But the objective point of the day remained John, --his going andcoming. 

"Busy day?" she would ask when he bent to kiss her. 

"They're all busy days!"

"Tell me what you did. "

"Oh, " he would answer vaguely, "just saw people and dictated letters andtelegrams, --yes, it was a busy day. " And he left her to dress for dinner. 

She knew that he was weary after all the problems that he had thrust hisbusy mind into since the morning. She had no great curiosity to know whatthese problems were. She had been accustomed to the sanctity of businessreserve in her father's house: men disappeared in the morning to their workand emerged to wash and dress and be as amusing as they might for the fewremaining hours of the day. There were rumors of what went on in thatmysterious world of business, but the right kind of men did not disclosethe secrets of the office to women. 

It never occurred to Lane to go over with her the minute detail of his fullday: how he had considered an application from a large shipper forswitching privileges, had discussed the action of the Torso and Northern incutting the coal rates, had lunched with Freke, the president of a coalcompany that did business with the A. And P. ; and had received, just as heleft the office, the report of a serious freight wreck at one end of hisdivision. As he had said, a busy day! And this business of life, like anendless steel chain, had caught hold of him at once and was carrying himfast in its revolution. It was his life; he liked it. With cool head andsteady nerves he set himself at each problem, working it out according toknown rules, calling on his trained experience. He did not look into thefuture, content with the preoccupation of the present, confident that thefuture, whatever and wherever it might be, would be crowded with affairs, activity, which he would meet competently.... 

"Well, what have _you_ been doing?" he asked as he sat down, fresh from hisbath, and relaxed comfortably in anticipation of a pleasant dinner. Isabelle made a great point of dinner, having it served formally by twomaids, with five "Busy day?" she would ask when he bent to kiss her. 

"They're all busy days!"

"Tell me what you did. "

"Oh, " he would answer vaguely, "just saw people and dictated letters andtelegrams, --yes, it was a busy day. " And he left her to dress for dinner. 

She knew that he was weary after all the problems that he had thrust hisbusy mind into since the morning. She had no great curiosity to know whatthese problems were. She had been accustomed to the sanctity of businessreserve in her father's house: men disappeared in the morning to their workand emerged to wash and dress and be as amusing as they might for the fewremaining hours of the day. There were rumors of what went on in thatmysterious world of business, but the right kind of men did not disclosethe secrets of the office to women. 

It never occurred to Lane to go over with her the minute detail of his fullday: how he had considered an application from a large shipper forswitching privileges, had discussed the action of the Torso and Northern incutting the coal rates, had lunched with Freke, the president of a coalcompany that did business with the A. And P. ; and had received, just as heleft the office, the report of a serious freight wreck at one end of hisdivision. As he had said, a busy day! And this business of life, like anendless steel chain, had caught hold of him at once and was carrying himfast in its revolution. It was his life; he liked it. With cool head andsteady nerves he set himself at each problem, working it out according toknown rules, calling on his trained experience. He did not look into thefuture, content with the preoccupation of the present, confident that thefuture, whatever and wherever it might be, would be crowded with affairs, activity, which he would meet competently.... 

"Well, what have _you_ been doing?" he asked as he sat down, fresh from hisbath, and relaxed comfortably in anticipation of a pleasant dinner. Isabelle made a great point of dinner, having it served formally by twomaids, with five courses and at least one wine, "to get used to livingproperly, " as she explained vaguely. 

"Mrs. Adams called. " She was the wife of the manager of the baking-powderworks and president of the country club, a young married woman from aWestern city with pretensions to social experience. "John, " Isabelle addedafter mentioning this name, "do you think we shall have to stay here long?"

Her husband paused in eating his soup to look at her. "Why--why?"

"It's so second-classy, " she continued; "at least the women are, mostly. There's only one I've met so far that seemed like other people one hasknown. "

"Who is she?" Lane inquired, ignoring the large question. 

"Mrs. Falkner. "

"Rob Falkner's wife? He's engineer at the Pleasant Valley mines. "

"She came from Denver. "

"They say he's a clever engineer. "

"She is girlish and charming. She told me all about every one in Torso. She's been here two years, and she seems to know everybody. "

"And she thinks Torso is second-class?" Lane inquired. 

"She would like to get away, I think. But they are poor, I suppose. Herclothes look as if she knew what to wear, --pretty. She says there are someinteresting people here when you find them out.... Who is Mr. Darnell? Alawyer. "

"Tom Darnell? He's one of the local counsel for the road, --a Kentuckian, politician, talkative sort of fellow, very popular with all sorts. What didMrs. Falkner have to say about Tom Darnell?"

"She told me all about his marriage, --how he ran away with his wife from aboarding-school in Kentucky--and was chased by her father and brothers, andthey fired at him. A regular Southern scrimmage! But they got across theriver and were married. "

"Sounds like Darnell, " Lane remarked contemptuously. 

"It sounds exciting!" his wife said. 

The story, as related by the vivacious Mrs. Falkner, had stirred Isabelle'scuriosity; she could not dismiss this Kentucky politician as curtly as herhusband had disposed of him.... 

They were both wilted by the heat, and after dinner they strolled out intothe garden to get more air, walking leisurely arm in arm, while Lane smokedhis first, cigar. Having finished the gossip for the day, they had littleto say to each other, --Isabelle wondered that it should be so little! Twomonths of daily companionship after the intimate weeks of their engagementhad exhausted the topics for mere talk which they had in common. To-night, as Lane wished to learn the latest news from the wreck, they went into thetown, crossing on their way to the office the court-house square. This wasthe centre of old Torso, where the distillery aristocracy still lived inhigh, broad-eaved houses of the same pattern as the Colonel's city mansion. In one of these, which needed painting and was generally neglected, thelong front windows on the first story were open, revealing a group ofpeople sitting around a supper-table. 

"There's Mrs. Falkner, " Isabelle remarked; "the one at the end of thetable, in white. This must be where they live. "

Lane looked at the house with a mental estimate of the rent. 

"Large house, " he observed. 

Isabelle watched the people laughing and talking about the table, which wasstill covered with coffee cups and glasses. A sudden desire to be there, tohear what they were saying, seized her. A dark-haired man was leaningforward and emphasizing his remarks by tapping a wine glass with alongfinger. That might be Tom Darnell, she thought.... The other houses aboutthe square were dark and gloomy, most of them closed for the summer. 

"There's a good deal of money in Torso, " Lane commented, glancing at abrick house with wooden pillars. "It's a growing place, --more businesscoming all the time. "

He looked at the town with the observant eye of the railroad officer, whosees in the prosperity of any community but one word writ large, --TRAFFIC. 

And that word was blown through the soft night by the puffing locomotivesin the valley below, by the pall of smoke that hung night and day over thisquarter of the city, the dull glow of the coke-ovens on the distant hills. To the man this was enough--this and his home; business and the woman hehad won, --they were his two poles!

CHAPTER VI

"You see, " continued Bessie Falkner, drawing up her pretty feet into thepiazza cot, "it was just love at first sight. I was up there at the hotelin the mountains, trying to make up my mind whether I could marry anotherman, who was awfully rich--owned a mine and a ranch; but he was so dull thehorses would go to sleep when we were out driving ... And then just as Iconcluded it was the only thing for me to do, to take him and make the bestof him, --then Rob rode up to the hotel in his old tattered suit--he wasbuilding a dam or something up in the mountains--and I knew I couldn'tmarry Mr. Mine-and-Ranch. That was all there was to it, my dear. The restof the story? Why, of course he made the hotel his headquarters while hewas at work on the dam; I stayed on, too, and it came along--naturally, youknow. "

Mrs. Falkner dipped into a box of candy and swung the cot gently to andfro. The men were still talking inside the house and the two wives had comeoutside for long confidences. Isabelle, amused by this sketch of theColorado courtship, patted the blond woman's little hand. Mrs. Falkner hadlarge blue eyes, with waving tendrils of hair, which gave her face the lookof childish unsophistication;--especially at this moment when hervoluptuous lips were closing over a specially desired piece of candy. 

"Of course it would come along--with you!"

"I didn't do a thing--just waited, " Bessie protested, fishing about thealmost empty box for another delectable bit. "He did it all. He was in sucha hurry he wanted to marry me then and there at the hotel and go live up inthe mountains in a cabin above the dam where he was at work. He's romantic. Men are all like that then, don't you think? But of course it couldn't bethat way; so we got married properly in the fall in Denver, and then camestraight here. And, " with a long sigh, "we've been here ever since. Stuck!"

"I should think you would have preferred the cabin above the dam, " Isabellesuggested, recalling her own romantic notion of Dog Mountain. Mrs. Falknermade a little grimace. 

"That might do for two or three months. But snowed in all the winter, evenwith the man you like best in all the world? He'd kill you or escapethrough the drifts ... You see we hadn't a thing, not a cent, except hissalary and that ended with the dam. It was only eighty a month anyway. Thisis better, a hundred and fifty, " she explained with childish frankness. "But Rob has to work harder and likes the mountains, is always talking ofgoing back. But I say there are better things than hiding yourself at theland's end. There's St. Louis, or maybe New York!"

Isabelle wondered how the Falkners were able to support such a hospitablehouse--they had two small children and Bessie had confided that another wascoming in the spring--on the engineer's salary. 

"And the other one, " Mrs. Falkner added in revery, "is more than amillionnaire now. "

Her face was full of speculation over what might have been as the wife ofall that money. 

"But we are happy, Rob and I, --except for the bills! Don't you hate bills?"

Isabelle's only answer was a hearty laugh. She found this pretty, franklittle "Westerner" very attractive. 

"It was bills that made my mother unhappy--broke her heart. Sometimes wehad money, --most generally not. Such horrid fusses when there wasn't any. But what is one to do? You've got to go on living somehow. Rob says wecan't afford this house, --Rob is always afraid we won't get through. But wedo somehow. I tell him that the good time is coming, --we must justanticipate it, draw a little on the future. "

At this point the men came through the window to the piazza. Bessie shookher box of candy coquettishly at Lane, who took the chair beside her. Evidently he thought her amusing, as most men did. Falkner leaned againstthe white pillar and stared up at the heavens. Isabelle, accustomed to menof more conventional social qualities, had found the young engineer glumand odd. He had a stern, rather handsome face, a deep furrow dividing hisforehead and meeting the part of his thick brown hair, which curledslightly at the ends. "If he didn't look so cross, he would be quitehandsome, " thought Isabelle, wondering how long it might be before her hostwould speak to her. She could see him as he rode up to the hotel piazzathat day, when Bessie Falkner had made up her mind on the moment that shecould not marry "the other man. " Finally Falkner broke his glum silence. 

"Do you eat candy, Mrs. Lane? Pounds of it, I mean, --so that it is yourstaple article of diet. "

"Tut, tut, " remarked his wife from her cot. "Don't complain. "

His next remark was equally abrupt. 

"There's only one good thing in this Torso hole, " he observed with moreanimation than he had shown all the evening, "and that's the coke-ovens atnight--have you noticed them? They are like the fiery pits, smouldering, ready for the damned!"

It was not what she expected from a civil engineer, in Torso, Indiana, andshe was at a loss for a reply. 

"You'd rather have stayed in Colorado?" she asked frankly. 

He turned his face to her and said earnestly, "Did you ever sleep out on amountain with the stars close above you?--'the vast tellurian galleons'voyaging through space?"

Isabelle suspected that he was quoting poetry, which also seemed odd inTorso. 

"Yes, --my brother and I used to camp out at our home in Connecticut. But Idon't suppose you would call our Berkshire Hills mountains. "

"No, " he replied dryly, "I shouldn't. "

And their conversation ended. Isabella wished that the Darnells had notbeen obliged to go home immediately after supper. The young lawyer knew howto talk to women, and had made himself very agreeable, telling stories ofhis youth spent among the mountains with a primitive people. She hadobserved that he drank a good deal of whiskey, and there was something inhis black eyes that made her uncomfortable. But he was a man that womenliked to think about: he touched their imaginations. She did not talk abouthim to John on their way home, however, but discussed the Falkners. 

"Don't you think she is perfectly charming?" (Charming was the word she hadfound for Bessie Falkner. ) "So natural and amusing! She's very Western--shecan't have seen much of life--but she isn't a bit ordinary. "

"Yes, I like her, " Lane replied unenthusiastically, "and he seems original. I shouldn't wonder if he were clever in his profession; he told me a lotabout Freke's mines. "

What he had learned about the Pleasant Valley mines was the chief thing inthe evening to Lane. He did not understand why Isabelle seemed so much moreeager to know these people--these Darnells and Falkners--than the Frasersand the Adamses. She had made fun of the solemn dinner that the Frasers hadgiven to introduce them into Torso "society. "

"I wonder how they can live on that salary, " Isabelle remarked. "Onehundred and fifty a month!"

"He must make something outside. "

 * * * * *

After the Lanes had gone, Bessie Falkner prepared yawningly for bed, leaving her husband to shut up the house. Her weekly excitement ofentertaining people over, she always felt let down, like a poet after thestir of creation. It was useless to go over the affair with Rob, as he wasmerely bored. But she spent hours thinking what the women said and how theylooked and deciding whom she could have the next time. On her way to bedshe went into the nursery where her two little girls were asleep in theircots beside the nurse, and finding a window open woke the nurse to reproveher for her carelessness. In the hall she met her husband bringing up thesilver. 

"Emma is so thoughtless, " she complained. "I shall have to let her go if Ican find another servant in this town. "

Her husband listened negligently. The Falkners were perpetually changingtheir two servants, or were getting on without them. 

"Mrs. Lane's maids all wear caps, " Mrs. Falkner had observed frequently toher husband. 

Bessie had strict ideas of how a house should be run, ideas derived fromthe best houses that she was familiar with. Since the advent of the Lanesshe had extended these ideas and strove all the harder to achievemagnificent results. Though the livery of service was practically unknownin Torso, she had resolved to induce her cook (and maid of all work) toserve the meals with cap and apron, and also endeavored to have thenursemaid open the door and help serve when company was expected. 

"What's the use!" her husband protested. "They'll only get up and go. "

He could not understand the amount of earnest attention and real feelingthat his wife put into these things, --her pride to have her small domainsomewhat resemble the more affluent ones that she admired. Though herfamily had been decidedly plain, they had given her "advantages" ineducation and dress, and her own prettiness, her vivacity and charm, hadwon her way into whatever society Kansas City and Denver could offer. Shehad also visited here and there in different parts of the country, --once inNew York, and again at a cottage on the New England coast where there wereeight servants, a yacht, and horses. These experiences of luxury, of aneasy and large social life, she had absorbed through every pore. With thatmarvellous adaptability of her race she had quickly formed her ideals of"how people ought to live. " It was frequently difficult to carry out theseideals on a circumscribed income, with a husband who cared nothing forappearances, and that was a source of constant discontent to Bessie. 

"Coming to bed?" she asked her husband, as she looked in vain for thedrinking water that the maid was supposed to bring to her bedside at night. 

"No, " Falkner answered shortly. "I've got to make out those estimatessomehow before morning. If you will have people all the time--"

Bessie turned in at her door shrugging her shoulders. Rob was in one of his"cross" moods, --overworked, poor boy! She slowly began to undress beforethe mirror, thinking of Isabelle Lane's stylish figure and her perfectclothes. "She must have lots of money, " she reflected, "and so nice andsimple! He's attractive, too. Rob is foolish not to like them. He showedhis worst side to-night. If he wants to get on, --why, they are the sort ofpeople he ought to know. " Her husband's freakish temper gave her muchtrouble, his unexpectedly bearish moods when she was doing her very bestfor him, "bringing him out" as she put it, making the right kind offriends, --influential ones, so that he might have some chance in thescramble for the good things of life. Surely that was a wife's part. Bessiewas satisfied that she had done much for her husband in this way, developedhim socially; for when he rode up to the mountain hotel, he was solitary, moody, shy. Tonight he hadn't kissed her, --in fact hadn't done so forseveral days. He was tired by the prolonged heat, she supposed, and worriedabout the bills. He was always worried about expenses. 

As the clothes slipped from her still shapely figure, she stood before theglass, thinking in a haze of those first lover-days that had departed sosoon. Now instead of petting her, Rob spent his hours at home upstairs inhis attic workroom, doing extra work or reading. Could it be that he wasgrowing tired of her, so soon, in four years? She glanced over her shoulderat her pretty arms, her plump white neck reflected in the glass, and smiledunconsciously with assurance. Oh, he would come back to the lover-mood--shewas still desirable! And as the smile curved her lip she thought, "Imarried him for love!" She was very proud of that.... 

The house was now deliciously cool and quiet. Bessie sank into her bed witha sigh, putting out one hand for a magazine and turning on the electriclight beside the bed. It had been a tiresome day, with the supper to bringoff. There had been six courses, and everything had been very nice. Theblack cook she had engaged to prepare the meal was a treasure, could servea better dinner than Mrs. Fraser's or Mrs. Adams's. She herself had madethe salad and prepared the iced grape-fruit. Every limb ached--she wasalways so tired. She loved this last quiet hour of the day that she had byherself, now that the nurse took both the children. With her delicatehealth the nurse had been a necessity. She usually looked blooming androsy, but was always tired, always had been as long as she could remember. The doctor had told Falkner after the second child came that his wife wouldalways be a delicate woman, must be carefully protected, or she wouldcollapse and have the fearful modern disease of nerves. So Falkner hadinsisted on having the best nurse obtainable to relieve her from thewearing nights, --though it meant that somehow eighteen hundred dollars mustgrow of itself!

As midnight sounded from the court-house clock, Bessie laid down themagazine and stretched her tired limbs, luxuriating in the comfort of hersoft bed. The story she had been reading was sentimental, --the love of acowboy for the fair daughter of a railroad president. She longed for thecaresses of her cow-boy lover, and wondered dreamily if Lane were a devotedhusband. He seemed so; but all men were probably alike: their first desiresgratified, they thought of other things. So she put out the light andclosed her eyes, in faint discontent with life, which was proving lessromantic than she had anticipated. 

She had her own room. At first it had held two beds, her husband sharingthe room with her. But as the house was large he had taken a room on thethird story. Nowadays, as Bessie knew, the better sort of Americanhousehold does not use the primitive double bed. For hygiene and comfortenlightened people have taken to separate beds, then separate quarters. Abook might be written on the doing away of the conjugal bed in Americanlife! There should be interesting observations on the effect of thischange, social, and hygienic, and moral, --oh, most interesting! ... Acontented smile at last stole over the young wife's face. Was she dreamingof her babies, of those first days of love, when her husband never wishedher out of his sight, or simply of the well-ordered, perfectly served, pretty supper that she had given for the Lanes whom she was most anxious toknow well? The supper had quite met her aspirations except in the matter ofcaps and aprons, had satisfied her cherished ideal of how "nice people"lived in this world. 

That ideal is constantly expanding these days. In America no one is classedby birth or profession. All is to make, and the women with their marvellouspowers of absorption do the shaping. In a thousand ways they learn "how tolive as other people do, "--in magazines and on bill boards, in the theatre, the churches, the trains, the illustrated novel. Suggestions how to live!

Meantime upstairs in the mansard room of the old house Falkner was figuringover stresses and strains of an unemotional sort. When past midnight heshoved the papers into the drawer, a familiar thought coursed through hisbrain: somehow he must sell himself at a dearer price. Living was not cheapeven in Torso, and the cost of living was ever going higher, so the paperssaid and the wives. There were four of them now, a fifth to come in a fewmonths. There should be a third servant, he knew, if they were to live"like other people. " With a gesture that said, "Oh, Hell!" he jumped fromhis chair and took down a volume of verse from the pine shelf above themantel and lighted a cigarette. For a few minutes he might lose himself andforget the fret of life, in the glowing pictures of things not seen. 

The book dropped from his hand. He had carried it in his mountain kit, hadread it to Bessie when they were engaged. She had listened, flattered, looking at him and smoothing his hair. But after marriage she confessedflatly that she was not "literary. " So they had read together a book oftravels, then a novel, then a magazine, and latterly nothing. Takinganother cigarette, the man read on, and before his tired eyes rose thepurple peaks of the Rockies, the shining crests of snow, the azure sky. Andalso a cabin in a green meadow beside a still mountain lake, and a womanfair and tall and straight, with blue eyes and a caressing hand, --a childon one arm. But Bessie was sleeping downstairs. Putting out his light, theman went to bed. 

The man on horseback riding up the trail to look into the girl's eyes thatsummer afternoon!

CHAPTER VII

The two young wives quickly became very intimate. They spent many morningstogether "reading, " that is, they sat on the cool west veranda of theLanes's house, or less often on the balcony at the Falkners's, with a novelturned down where their attention had relaxed, chatting and sewing. Isabelle found Bessie Falkner "cunning, " "amusing, " "odd, " and always"charming. " She had "an air about her, " a picturesque style of gossip thatshe used when instructing Isabelle in the intricacies of Torso society. Isabelle also enjoyed the homage that Bessie paid her. 

Bessie frankly admired Isabella's house, her clothes, her stylish self, andenjoyed her larger experience of life, --the Washington winter, Europe, eventhe St. Louis horizon, --all larger than anything she had ever known. Isabelle was very nearly the ideal of what she herself would have liked tobe. So when they had exhausted Torso and their households, they filled themorning hours with long tales about people they had known, --"Did you everhear of the Dysarts in St. Louis? Sallie Dysart was a great belle, --she hadno end of affairs, and then she married Paul Potter. The Potters were verywell-known people in Philadelphia, etc. " Thus they gratified theircuriosity about _lives_, all the interesting complications into which menand women might get. Often Bessie stayed for luncheon, a dainty affairserved on a little table which the maid brought out and set between them. Sometimes Bessie had with her the baby girl, but oftener not, for shebecame exacting and interfered with the luncheon. 

Bessie had endless tidbits of observation about Torsonians. "Mrs. Freke wasa cashier in a Cleveland restaurant when he married her. Don't you see thebang in her hair still? ... Mrs. Griscom came from Kentucky, --very oldfamily. Tom Griscom, their only son, went to Harvard, --he was very wild. He's disappeared since.... Yes, Mrs. Adams is common, but the men seem tolike her. I don't trust her green eyes. Mr. Darnell, they say, is alwaysthere. Oh, Mr. Adams isn't the one to care!"

Often they came back to Darnell, --that impetuous, black-haired young lawyerwith his deep-set, fiery eyes, who had run away with his wife. 

"She looks scared most of the time, don't you think? They say he drinks. Too bad, isn't it? Such a brilliant man, and with the best chances. He ranfor Congress two years ago on the Democratic ticket, and just failed. He isgoing to try again this next fall, but his railroad connection is againsthim.... Oh, Sue Darnell, --she is nobody; she can't hold him--that's plain. "

"What does she think of Mrs. Adams?"

Bessie shrugged her shoulders significantly. 

"Sue has to have her out at their farm. Well, they say she was pretty gayherself, --engaged to three men at once, --one of them turned up in Torsolast year. Tom was very polite to him, elaborately polite; but he left townvery soon, and she seemed dazed.... I guess she has reason to be afraid ofher husband. He looks sometimes--well, I shouldn't like to have Rob look atme that way, not for half a second!"

The two women clothed the brilliant Kentuckian with all the romance ofunbridled passion. "He sends to Alabama every week for the jasmine Mrs. Adams wears--fancy!"

"Really! Oh, men! men!"

"It's probably _her_ fault--she can't hold him. "

That was the simple philosophy which they evolved about marriage, --men wereuncertain creatures, only partly tamed, and it was the woman's business to"hold" them. So much the worse for the women if they happened to be tied tomen they could not "hold. " Isabelle, remembering on one occasion theflashing eyes of the Kentuckian, his passionate denunciation of merecommercialism in public life, felt that there might be some defence forpoor Tom Darnell, --even in his flirtation with the "common" Mrs. Adams. 

Then the two friends went deeper and talked husbands, both admiring, bothhilariously amused at the masculine absurdities of their mates. 

"I hate to see poor Rob so harassed with bills, " Bessie confided. "It ishard for him, with his tastes, poor boy. But I don't know what I can doabout it. When he complains, I tell him we eat everything we have, and I amsure I never get a dress!"

Isabelle, recollecting the delicious suppers she had had at the Falkners's, thought that less might be eaten. In her mother's house there had alwaysbeen comfort, but strict economy, even after the hardware business paidenormous profits. This thrift was in her blood. Bessie had said to Rob thatIsabelle was "close. " But Isabelle only laughed at Bessie when she was inthese moods of dejection, usually at the first of the month. Bessie was soamusing about her troubles that she could not take her seriously. 

"Never mind, Bessie!" she laughed. "He probably likes to work hard foryou, --every man does for the woman he loves. "

And then they would have luncheon, specially devised for Bessie's epicureantaste. For Bessie Falkner did devout homage to a properly cooked dish. Isabelle, watching the contented look with which the little woman swalloweda bit of jellied meat, felt that any man worth his salt would like togratify her innocent tastes. Probably Falkner couldn't endure a lesscharming woman for his wife. So she condoned, as one does with a cleverchild, all the little manifestations of waywardness and selfishness thatshe was too intelligent not to see in her new friend. Isabelle liked tospoil Bessie Falkner. Everybody liked to indulge her, just as one likes tofeed a pretty child with cake and candy, especially when the discomforts ofthe resulting indigestion fall on some one else. 

"Oh, it will all come out right in the end!" Bessie usually exclaimed, after she had well lunched. She did not see things very vividly farahead, --nothing beyond the pleasant luncheon, the attractive house, heradorable Isabelle. "I always tell Rob when he is blue that his chance willcome some day; he'll make a lucky strike, do some work that attracts publicattention, and then we'll all be as happy as can be. "

She had the gambler's instinct; her whole life had been a gamble, nowwinning, now losing, even to that moment when her lover had ridden up tothe hotel and solved her doubts about the rich suitor. In Colorado she hadknown men whose fortunes came over night, "millions and millions, " as shetold Isabelle, rolling the words in her little mouth toothsomely. Why notto her? She felt that any day fortune might smile. 

"My husband says that Mr. Falkner is doing excellent work, --Mr. Freke saidso, " Isabelle told Bessie. 

"And Rob talks as if he were going to lose his job next week! Sometimes Iwish he would lose it--and we could go away to a large city. "

Bessie thus echoed the feeling in Isabelle's own heart, --"I don't want tospend my life on an Indiana prairie!" To both of the women Torso was less ahome, a corner of the earth into which to put down roots, than away-station in the drama and mystery of life. Confident in their husbands'ability to achieve Success, they dreamed of other scenes, of a largerfuture, with that restlessness of a new civilization, which has latterlyseized even women--the supposedly stable sex. 

 * * * * *

As the year wore on there were broader social levels into which Isabelle incompany with Bessie dipped from time to time. The Woman's Club had alecture course in art and sociology. They attended one of the lectures inthe Normal School building, and laughed furtively in their muffs at "MadamPresident" of the Club, --a portly, silk-dressed dame, --and at theill-fitting black coat of the university professor who lectured. They cameaway before the reception. 

"Dowds!" Bessie summed up succinctly. 

"Rather crude, " Isabelle agreed tolerantly. 

During the winter Isabelle did some desultory visiting among the Hungariansemployed at the coke-ovens, for Bessie's church society. Originally ofPresbyterian faith, she had changed at St. Mary's to the Episcopal church, and latterly all church affiliations had grown faint. The Colonelmaintained a pew in the first Presbyterian Church, but usually went to hearthe excellent lectures of a Unitarian preacher. Isabelle's religious viewswere vague, broad, liberal, and unvital. Bessie's were simpler, butscarcely more effective. Lane took a lively interest in the railroadY. M. C. A. , which he believed to be helpful for young men. He himself hadbeen a member in St. Louis and had used the gymnasium. Isabelle got up anentertainment for the Hungarian children, which was ended by a disastrousthunderstorm. She had an uneasy feeling that she "ought to do something forsomebody. " Alice Johnston, she knew, had lived at a settlement for a coupleof years. But there were no settlements in Torso, and the acutely poor werelooked after by the various churches. Just what there was to be done forothers was not clear. When she expressed her desire "not to live selfishly"to her husband, he replied easily:--

"There are societies for those things, I suppose. It ought to be natural, what we do for others. "

Just what was meant by "natural" was not clear to Isabelle, but the wordaccorded with the general belief of her class that the best way to help inthe world was to help one's self, to become useful to others by becomingimportant in the community, --a comfortable philosophy. But there was onedefinite thing that they might accomplish, and that was to help theFalkners into easier circumstances. 

"Don't you suppose we could do something for them? Now that the baby hascome they are dreadfully poor, --can't think of going away for the summer, and poor Bessie needs it and the children. I meant to ask the Colonel whenhe was here last Christmas. Isn't there something Rob could do in theroad?"

Lane shook his head. 

"That is not my department. There might be a place in St. Louis when theybegin work on the new terminals. I'll speak to Brundage the next time he'shere. "

"St. Louis--Bessie would like that. She's such a dear, and would enjoypretty things so much! It seems as if she almost had a right to them. "

"Why did she marry a poor man, then?" Lane demanded with masculine logic. 

"Because she loved him, silly! She isn't mercenary. "

"Well, then, --" but Lane did not finish his sentence, kissing his wifeinstead. "She's rather extravagant, isn't she?" he asked after a time. 

"Oh, she'll learn to manage. "

"I will do what I can for him, of course. "

And Isabelle considered the Falkners' fate settled; John, like her father, always brought about what he wanted. 

 * * * * *

They spent the Christmas holidays that year with her parents. Lane wascalled to New York on railroad business, and Isabelle had a breathless tendays with old friends, dining and lunching, listening to threads of gossipthat had been broken by her exile to Torso. She discovered an unexpectedavidity for diversion, and felt almost ashamed to enjoy people so keenly, to miss her husband so little. She put it all down to the cramping effectof Torso. So when the Colonel asked her how she liked her new home, sheburst forth, feeling that her opportunity had come:--

"It doesn't agree with me, I think. I've grown frightfully thin, --John saysI mustn't spend another summer there.... I hope we can get away soon. Johnmust have a wider field, don't you think?"

"He seems to find Torso pretty wide. "

"He's done splendid work, I know. But I don't want him side-tracked all hislife in a little Indiana town. Don't you think you could speak to theSenator or Mr. Beals?"

The Colonel smiled. 

"Yes, I could speak to them, if John wants me to. "

"He hasn't said anything about it, " she hastened to add. 

"So you are tired of Torso?" he asked, smiling still more. 

"It seems so good to be here, to hear some music, and go to the theatre; tobe near old friends, " she explained apologetically. "Don't you and motherwant us to be near you?"

"Of course, my dear! We want you to be happy. "

"Why, we are happy there, --only it seems so out of the world, sosecond-class. And John is not second-class. "

"No, John is not second-class, " the Colonel admitted with another smile. "And for that reason I don't believe he will want me to interfere. "

Nevertheless she kept at her idea, talking it over with her mother. All herfriends were settled in the great cities, and it was only natural that sheshould aspire to something better than Torso--for the present, St. Louis. So the Colonel spoke to Lane, and Lane spoke to his wife when they wereback once more in the Torso house. He was grave, almost hurt. 

"I'm sorry, Belle, you are so tired of life here. I can take anotherposition or ask to be transferred; but you must understand, dear, thatwhatever is done, it must be by myself. I don't want favors, not even fromthe Colonel!"

She felt ashamed and small, yet protested: "I don't see why you shouldobject. Every one does the same, --uses all the pull he has. "

"There are changes coming, --I prefer to wait. The man who uses least pullusually hangs on longest. "

As he walked to the office that morning, the thought of Isabelle'srestlessness occupied his mind. "It's dull for her here, of course. Itisn't the kind of life she's been used to, or had the right to expect asthe Colonel's daughter. " He felt the obligation to live up to his wife, having won her from a superior position. Like a chivalrous Americangentleman he was not aggrieved because even during the first two years ofmarriage, he--their life together--was not enough to satisfy his wife. Hedid not reflect that his mother had accepted unquestioningly the Iowa townto which his father had brought her after the War; nor that Isabelle'smother had accepted cheerfully the two rooms in the little brick house nearthe hardware store. Those were other days. 

He saw the picture of Isabelle standing beside the dining-room window withthe sun on her hair, --a developed type of human being, that demanded muchof life for satisfaction and adjustment. He plunged into his affairs withan added grip, an unconscious feeling that he must by his exertions providethose satisfactions and adjustments which his wife's nature demanded forits perfect development. 

CHAPTER VIII

It was to be Isabella's first real dinner-party, a large affair for Torso. It had already absorbed her energies for a fortnight. The occasion was thearrival of a party of Atlantic and Pacific officials and directors, whowere to inspect the Torso and Northern, with a view to its purchase andabsorption. The Torso and Northern was only a little scab line of railroad, penetrating the soft-coal country for a couple of hundred miles, bankruptand demoralized. When Lane saw President Beals at Christmas, he pointed outto him what might be made of this scrap-heap road, if it were rehabilitatedand extended into new coal fields. Beals had shown no interest in the Torsoand Northern at that time, and Lane forgot the matter until he noticed thatthere was a market for Torso and Northern equipment bonds, which before hadbeen unsalable at twenty. Seeing them rise point by point for a month, hehad bought all he could pay for; he knew the weather signs in the railroadworld. When the inspection party was announced, his sagacity was proved. 

Isabelle was excited by the prospect of her dinner for the distinguishedvisitors. Who should she have of Torso's best to meet them? The Frasers andthe Griscoms, of course. John insisted on inviting the Frekes, and Isabellewanted the Darnells and the Adamses, though her husband demurred atrecognizing the bond. But Tom Darnell was so interesting, his wife urged, and she was presentable. And the Falkners? There was no special reason forhaving them, but Isabelle thought it might be a good thing for Rob to meetsome influential people, and Bessie would surely amuse the men. Isabelle'sexecutive energy was thoroughly aroused. The flowers and the wines wereordered from St. Louis, the terrapin from Philadelphia, the fish and thecandies from New York. Should they have champagne? Lane thought not, because "it's not quite our style. " But Isabelle overbore his objections:--

"The Adamses always have it, and the Senator will expect it and all the NewYork crowd. "

Her husband acquiesced, feeling that in these things his wife knew theworld better than he, --though he would have preferred to offer his superiorofficers a simpler meal. 

The inspection party returned from their trip over the Torso and Northernin the best of spirits. Lane felt sure that the purchase had been decidedupon by this inner coterie of the A. And P. , of which the mouthpiece, Senator Thomas, had emitted prophetic phrases, --"valuable possibilitiesundeveloped, " "would tap new fields, --good feeder, " etc. , etc. Lane thoughtpleasantly of the twenty equipment bonds in his safe, which would beredeemed by the Atlantic and Pacific at par and accrued interest, and heresolved to secure another block, if they were to be had, before the salewas officially confirmed by the directors. Altogether it had been anagreeable jaunt. He had met several influential directors and had beengenerally consulted as the man who knew the exact local conditions. And hewas aware that he had made a favorable impression as a practical railroadman.... 

When his guests came down to the drawing-room, he was proud of what hiswife had done. The house was ablaze with candles--Bessie had persuadedIsabelle to dispense with the electric light--and bunches of heavy, thick-stemmed roses filled the vases. A large silver tray of decanters andcocktails was placed in the hall beside the blazing fire. The Senator hadalready possessed himself of a cocktail, and was making his little speechesto Isabelle, who in a Paris gown that gave due emphasis to her prettyshoulders and thin figure, was listening to him gayly. 

"Did you think we lived in a log-cabin, Senator?" she protested to hiscompliments. "We eat with knives and forks, silver ones too, and sometimeswe even have champagne in Torso!"... 

Lane, coming up with the first Vice-president, Vernon Short, and a Mr. Stanton, one of the New York directors ("a great swell, " and "not justmoney, " "has brains, you know, " as the Senator whispered), was proud of hiscompetent wife. She was vivaciously awake, and seemed to have forgotten hergirlish repugnance to the amorous Senator. As she stood by the drawing-roomdoor receiving her guests, he felt how much superior to all the Torso"leaders" she was, --yes, she deserved a larger frame! And to-night he feltconfident that he should be able before long to place her in it.... TheSenator, having discharged his cargo of compliments, was saying:--

"Saw your friend Miss Pallanton that was--Mrs. Woodyard--at the Stantons'sthe other night, looking like a blond Cleopatra. She's married a brightfellow, and she'll be the making of him. He'll have to hop around to pleaseher, --I expect that's what husbands are for, isn't it, Lane?"

And here Isabelle passed him over to Bessie, who had come without Falkner, he having made some silly excuse at the last moment, --"just cross, " asBessie confided to Isabelle. She was looking very fresh in a gown that sheand Isabelle's seamstress had contrived, and she smiled up into theSenator's face with her blandest child-manner. The Senator, who liked allwomen, even those who asked his views on public questions, was especiallyfond of what he called the "unsophisticated" variety, with whom his titlecarried weight. 

When they reached the dining room, Lane's elation rose to a higher pitch. The table, strewn with sweet jasmine and glossy leaves, was adorned withall the handsome gold and silver service and glass that Isabelle hadreceived at her marriage. It was too barbarically laden to be reallybeautiful; but it was in the best prevailing taste of the time, and toLane, who never regarded such matters attentively, "was as good as thebest. " Looking down the long table after they were seated, he smiled withsatisfaction and expanded, a subtle suavity born of being host todistinguished folk unlocking his ordinarily reticent tongue, causing himeven to joke with Mrs. Adams, whom he did not like. 

The food was excellent, and the maids, some borrowed, some speciallyimported from St. Louis, made no mistakes, at least gross ones. The feastmoved as smoothly as need be. Isabelle, glancing over the table as the gamecame on, had her moment of elation, too. This was a real dinner-party, aselaborate and sumptuous as any that her friends in St. Louis might give. The Farrington Beals, she remembered, had men servants, --most New Yorkfamilies kept them, but that could hardly be expected in Torso. The dinnerwas excellent, as the hungry visitors testified, and they seemed to findthe women agreeable and the whole affair unexpectedly cosmopolitan, whichwas pleasing after spending a long week in a car, examining terminals andcoal properties. Indeed, it was very much the same dinner that was beingserved at about that hour in thousands of well-to-do houses throughout thecountry all the way from New York to San Francisco, --the same dishes, thesame wines, the same service, almost the same talk. Nothing in Americanlife is so completely standardized as what is known as a "dinner" in good, that is well-to-do, society. Isabelle Lane, with all her executive ability, her real cleverness, aspired to do "the proper thing, " just as it was donein the houses of the moderately rich everywhere. 

The model of hospitality is set by the hotel manager and his chef, and allthat the clever hostess aspires to do is to offer the nearest copy of thisto her guests. Neither the Lanes nor any of their guests, however, feltthis lack of distinction, this sameness, in the entertainment provided forthem. They had the comfortable feeling of being in a cheerful house, wellwarmed and well lighted, of eating all this superfluous food, which theywere accustomed to eat, of saying the things they always said on suchoccasions.... 

Isabelle had distributed her Torsonians skilfully: Bessie was adorable andkept three men hanging on her stories. Mrs. Adams, on the other side ofStanton, was furtively eying Darnell, who was talking rather loudly, tryingto capture the Senator's attention from Bessie. Across the table Mrs. Darnell, still the striking dark-haired schoolgirl, was watching herhusband, with a pitiful something in her frightened eyes that made Isabelleshrink.... It was Darnell who finally brought the conversation to a fullstop. 

"No, Senator, " he said in his emphatic voice, "it is not scum like theassassin of the President that this country should fear!"

"We're paying now for our liberal policy in giving homes to the anarchisticrefuse of Europe, " the Senator insisted. "Congress must pass legislationthat will protect us from another Czolgocz. "

Darnell threw up his head, his lips curving disdainfully. He had emptiedhis champagne glass frequently, and there was a reckless light in his darkeyes. Isabelle trembled for his next remark:--

"You are wrong, sir, if you will allow me to say so. The legislation thatwe need is not against poor, feeble-minded rats like that murderer. We haveprisons and asylums enough for them. What the country needs is legislationagainst its honored thieves, the real anarchists among us. We don't get 'emfrom Europe, Senator; we breed 'em right here, --in Wall street. "

If some one had discharged assafoetida over the table, there could not havebeen a more unpleasant sensation. 

"You don't mean quite that, Darnell, " Lane began; but the Kentuckianbrushed him to one side. 

"Just that; and some day you will see what Americans will do with theiranarchists. I tell you this land is full of discontent, --men hatingdishonesty, privilege, corruption, injustice! men ready to fight theiroppressors for freedom!"

The men about the table were all good Republicans, devout believers in thegospel of prosperity, all sharers in it. They smiled contemptuously atDarnell's passion. 

"Our martyred President was a great and good man, " the Senator observedirrelevantly in his public tone. 

"He was the greatest breeder of corruption that has ever held that office, "retorted the Kentuckian. "With his connivance, a Mark Hanna has forged theworst industrial tyranny the world has ever seen, --the corrupt grip ofcorporations on the lives of the people. "

"Pretty strong for a corporation lawyer!" Lane remarked, and the menlaughed cynically. 

"I am no longer a corporation hireling, " Darnell said in a loud voice. 

Isabelle noticed that Mrs. Adams's eyes glowed, as she gazed at the man. 

"I sent in my resignation last week. "

"Getting ready for the public platform?" some one suggested. "You won'tfind much enthusiasm for those sentiments; wages are too high!"

There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The Kentuckian raised his head asif to retort, then collected himself, and remarked meekly:--

"Pardon me, Mrs. Lane, this is not the occasion for such a discussion. Iwas carried away by my feelings. Sometimes the real thought will burstout. "

The apology scarcely bettered matters, and Isabelle's response was flat. 

"I am sure it is always interesting to hear both sides. "

"But I can't see that to a good citizen there can be two sides to thelamentable massacre of our President, " the Senator said severely. "I hadthe privilege of knowing our late President intimately, and I may say thatI never knew a better man, --he was another Lincoln!"

"I don't see where Mr. Darnell can find this general discontent, " theVice-president of the A. And P. Put in suavely. "The country has never beenso prosperous as during the McKinley-Hanna regime, --wages at the highlevel, exports increasing, crops abundant. What any honest and industriousman has to complain of, I can't see. Why, we are looking for men all thetime, and we can't get them, at any price!"

"'Ye shall not live by bread alone, '" Darnell muttered. It was a curiousremark for a dinner-party, Isabelle thought. Mrs. Adams's lips curled as ifshe understood it. But now that the fiery lawyer had taken to quoting theBible no one paid any further attention to him, and the party sank backinto little duologues appropriate to the occasion. Later Bessie confessedto Isabelle that she had been positively frightened lest the Kentuckianwould do "something awful, "--he had been drinking, she thought. But Darnellremained silent for the brief time before the ladies left the room, merelyonce raising his eyes apologetically to Isabelle with his wine-glass at hislips, murmuring so that she alone could hear him, --"I drink to the gods ofProsperity!" She smiled back her forgiveness. He had behaved very badly, almost wrecked her successful dinner; but somehow she could not dislikehim. She did not understand what he was saying or why he should say it whenpeople were having a good time; but she felt it was part of his interestingand uncertain nature.... 

Presently the coffee and cigars came and the women went across the hall, while the men talked desultorily until the sound of Bessie's voice singinga French song to Isabella's accompaniment attracted them. After the nextsong the visitors went, their car being due to leave on the Easternexpress. They said many pleasant things to Isabelle, and the Senator, holding her hand in his broad, soft palm, whispered:--

"We can't let so much charm stay buried in Torso!"

So when the last home guest had departed and Lane sat down before the firefor another cigar, Isabelle drew her chair close to his, her heart beatingwith pleasant emotions. 

"Well?" she said expectantly. 

"Splendid--everything! They liked it, I am sure. I felt proud of you, Belle!"

"It was all good but the fish, --yes, I thought our party was very nice!"Then she told him what the Senator had said, and this time Lane did notrepel the idea of their moving to wider fields. He had made a goodimpression on "the New York crowd, " and he thought again complacently ofthe Torso and Northern equipment bonds. 

"Something may turn up before long, perhaps. "

New York! It made her heart leap. She felt that she was now doing thewife's part admirably, furthering John's interests by being a competenthostess, and she liked to further his interests by giving pleasant dinners, in an attractive gown, and receiving the admiration of clever men. It hadnot been the way that her mother had helped on the Colonel; but it wasanother way, the modern way, and a very agreeable way. 

"Darnell is an awful fool, " Lane commented. "If he can't hold on to himselfany better than he did to-night, he won't get far. "

"Did you know that he had resigned?"

"No, --it's just as well he has. I don't think the A. And P. Would have muchuse for him. He's headed the wrong way;" and he added with hardly a pause, "I think we had better cut the Darnells out, Isabelle. They are not oursort. "

Isabelle, thinking that this was the man's prejudice, made no reply. 

"It was too bad Rob Falkner wouldn't come. It would have been a good thingfor him to meet influential people. "

Already she spoke with an air of commanding the right sort that her husbandhad referred to. 

"He doesn't make a good impression on people, " Lane remarked. "Perhaps hewill make good with his work. "

As a man who had made his own way he felt the great importance of beingable to "get on" with people, to interest them, and keep them aware ofone's presence. But he was broad enough to recognize other roads tosuccess. 

"So you were quite satisfied, John?" his wife asked as she kissed himgood-night. 

"Perfectly--it was the right thing--every way--all but Darnell's rot; andthat didn't do much harm. "

So the two went to their rest perfectly satisfied with themselves and theirworld. Lane's last conscious thought was a jumble of equipment bonds, andthe idea of his wife at the head of a long dinner table in some very grandhouse--in New York. 

CHAPTER IX

The Darnells had a farm a few miles out of Torso, and this spring they hadgiven up their house on the square and moved to the farm permanently. Bessie said it was for Mrs. Darnell's health; men said that the lawyer wasin a tight place with the banks; and gossip suggested that Darnellpreferred being in Torso without his wife whenever he was there. The farmwas on a small hill above a sluggish river, and was surrounded by a growthof old sycamores and maples. There was a long stretch of fertile fields infront of the house, dotted by the huge barns and steel windmills ofsurrounding farms. 

One Sunday in early May the Lanes were riding in the direction of theDarnell place, and Isabelle persuaded her husband to call there. "Ipromised to ride out here and show him the horses, " she explained. Thehouse was a shabby frame affair, large for a farmhouse, with porticoes andpillars in Southern style. They found the Darnells with the Falkners in theliving-room. Tom Darnell was reading an Elizabethan play aloud, rolling outthe verse in resounding declamation, punctuated by fervidappreciation, --"God! but that's fine!" "Hear this thing sing. " "Just listento this ripper. "

 "O God! O God! that it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday! That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem the hours!" ... 

When the Lanes had found chairs before the fire, he kept on reading, butwith less enthusiasm, as if he felt an alien atmosphere. Falkner listenedto the lines with closed eyes, his grim jaw relaxed, the deep frownsmoothed. Bessie stroked a white cat, --it was plain that her thoughts werefar away. Mrs. Darnell, who looked slovenly but pretty, stared vacantly outof the window. The sun lay in broad, streaks on the dusty floor; there wasan air of drowsy peace, broken only by the warm tones of the lawyer as hisvoice rose and fell over the spirited verse. Isabelle enjoyed it all; herewas something out of her usual routine. Darnell's face, which reflected theemotion of the lines, was attractive to her. He might not be the "rightsort"; but he was unusual.... Finally Darnell flung the book into thecorner and jumped up. 

"Here I am boring you good people with stuff dead and gone these hundredsof years. Falkner always starts me off. Let's have a drink and take a lookat the horses. "

The living-room was a mess of furniture and books, wineglasses, bottles, wraps, whips, and riding-boots. Lane looked it over critically, whileDarnell found some tumblers and poured out wine. Then they all went to thestable and dawdled about, talking horse. The fields were green with thesoft grass, already nearly a foot high. Over the house an old grape-vinewas budding in purple balls. There was a languor and sweetness to the airthat instigated laziness. Although Lane wished to be off, Isabelle lingeredon, and Darnell exclaimed hospitably: "You stay to dinner, of course! It isjust plain dinner, Mrs. Lane, "--and he swept away all denial. Turning tohis wife, who had said nothing, he remarked, "It's very good of them tocome in on us like this, isn't it, Irene?"

Mrs. Darnell started and mumbled:--

"Yes, I am sure!"

His manners to his wife were always perfect, deferential, --why should sheshrink before him? Isabelle wondered.... Dinner, plentiful and appetizing, was finally provided by the one negro woman. Darnell tried to talk to Lane, but to Isabelle's surprise her husband was at a disadvantage:--the two mencould not find common ground. Then Darnell and Falkner quoted poetry, andIsabelle listened. It was all very different from anything she knew. Whilethe others waited for their coffee, Darnell showed her the old orchard, --"to smell the first blossoms. " It was languorously still there under thetrees, with the misty fields beyond. Darnell said dreamily:--

"This is where I'd like to be always, --no, not six miles from Torso, but insome far-off country, a thousand miles from men!"

"You, a farmer!" laughed Isabelle. "And what about Congress, and the realanarchists?"

"Oh, you cannot understand! You do not belong to the fields as I do. " Hepointed ironically to her handsome riding skirt. "You are of the cities, ofpeople. You will flit from this Indiana landscape one day, from provincialTorso, and spread your gay wings among the houses of men. While I--" Hemade a gesture of despair, --half comic, half serious, --and his dark facebecame gloomy. 

Isabelle was amused at what she called his "heroics, " but she feltinterested to know what he was; and it flattered her that he should see her"spreading gay wings among the houses of men. " These days she liked tothink of herself that way. 

"You will be in Washington, while we are still in Torso!" she answered. 

"Maybe, " he mused. "Well, we play the game--play the game--until it isplayed out!"

'He is not happy with his wife, ' Isabelle concluded sagely; 'she doesn'tunderstand him, and that's why she has that half-scared look. '

"I believe you really want to play the game as much as anybody, " sheventured with a little thrill of surprise to find herself talking sopersonally with a man other than her husband. 

"You think so?" he demanded, and his face grew wistful. "There is nothingin the game compared with the peace that one might have--"

Lane was calling to her, but she lingered to say:--

"How?"

"Far away--with love and the fields!"

They walked back to where John was holding the horses. She was oddlyfluttered. For the first time since she had become engaged a man hadsomehow given her that special sensation, which women know, of confidencebetween them. She wished that John had not been so anxious to be off, andshe did not repeat to him Darnell's talk, as she usually did every smallitem. All that she said was, after a time of reflection, "He is not a happyman. "

"Who?"

"Mr. Darnell. "

"From what I hear he is in a bad way. It is his own fault. He has plenty ofability, --a splendid chance. "

She felt that this was an entirely inadequate judgment. What interested theman was the net result; what interested the woman was the human being inwhom that result was being worked out. They talked a little longer aboutthe fermenting tragedy of the household that they had just left, as theworld talks, from a distance. But Isabelle made the silentreservation, --'she doesn't understand him--with another woman, it would bedifferent. '... 

Their road home lay through a district devastated by the mammoth sheds ofsome collieries. A smudged sign bore the legend:--

PLEASANT VALLEY COAL COMPANY

Lane pulled up his horse and looked carefully about the place. Then hesuggested turning west to examine another coal property. 

"I suppose that Freke man is awfully rich, " Isabelle remarked, associatingthe name of the coal company with its president; "but he's so common, --Ican't see how you can stand him, John!"

Lane turned in his saddle and looked at the elegant figure that his wifemade on horseback. 

"He isn't half as interesting as Tom Darnell or Rob, " she added. 

"I stand him, " he explained, smiling, "for the reason men stand each othermost often, --we make money together. "

"Why, how do you mean? He isn't in the railroad. "

"I mean in coal mines, " he replied vaguely, and Isabelle realized that shewas trespassing on that territory of man's business which she had beenbrought up to keep away from. Nevertheless, as they rode homeward in thewestering golden light, she thought of several things:--John was in otherbusiness than the railroad, and that puffy-faced German-American was insome way connected with it; business covered many mysteries; a man didbusiness with people he would not ordinarily associate with. It evencrossed her mind that what with sleep and business a very large part of herhusband's life lay quite beyond her touch. Perhaps that was what theKentuckian meant by his ideal, --to live life with some loved one far awayin companionship altogether intimate. 

But before long she was thinking of the set of her riding-skirt, and thatled to the subject of summer gowns which she meant to get when she wentEast with her mother, and that led on to the question of the summer itself. It had been decided that Isabelle should not spend another summer in theTorso heat, but whether she should go to the Connecticut place or acceptMargaret Lawton's invitation to the mountains, she was uncertain. Thuspleasantly her thoughts drifted on into her future. 

CHAPTER X

If Isabelle had been curious about her husband's interest in the PleasantValley Coal Company, she might have developed a highly interesting chapterof commercial history, in which Mr. Freke and John Lane were enactingtypical parts. 

The Atlantic and Pacific railroad corporation is, as may easily beinferred, a vast organism, with a history, a life of its own, lying like athick ganglia of nerves and blood-vessels a third of the way across ourbroad continent, sucking its nourishment from thousands of miles of richand populous territory. To write its history humanly, not statistically, would be to reveal an important chapter in the national drama for the pastforty years, --a drama buried in dusty archives, in auditors' reports, vouchers, mortgage deeds, general orders, etc. Some day there will come thegreat master of irony, the man of insight, who will make this mass ofroutine paper glow with meaning visible to all!

Meanwhile this Atlantic and Pacific, which to-day is a mighty system, wasonce only a handful of atoms. There was the period of Birth; there was theperiod of Conquest; and finally there has come the period of Domination. Now, with its hold on the industry, the life of eight states, complete, like the great Serpent it can grumble, "I lie here possessing!"

Farrington Beals came to be President of the Atlantic and Pacific at theclose of the period of Conquest. The condottieri leaders, those splendidrailroad brigands of the seventies and eighties, had retired with "thefruits of their industry. " To Farrington Beals and his associate was leftthe care of the orchard. It was their task to solidify a conglomerate massof interest-bearing burden, to operate the property with the greatestefficiency possible, in order that it might support the burdens laid uponit and yet other burdens to come as the land waxed rich, --all burdens beingultimately passed to the broad back of the Public, where burdens seemnaturally to belong. To this end, Beals men, as they were called, graduallyreplaced throughout the length and breadth of the system the oldoperatives, whose methods belonged to the coarse days of brigandage! TheseBeals men were youngsters, --capable, active, full of "jump, " with the word"traffic, traffic" singing always in their ears. Beals was a splendid"operator, " and he rapidly brought the Atlantic and Pacific into the firstrank of the world's railroads. That shrewd and conservative statesman, Senator Alonzo Thomas (who had skilfully marshalled the legal and politicalforces during the period of Conquest) was now chairman of the Board, and heand the President successfully readjusted the heterogeneous mass of bondsand stocks, notes and prior liens, taking advantage of a period ofoptimistic feeling in the market to float a tremendous general mortgage. When this "Readjustment" had been successfully put through, the burden wassome forty or fifty millions larger than before, --where those millions wentis one of the mysteries to reward that future Carlyle!--but the public loadwas adjusted more trimly. So it was spoken of as a "masterly stroke offinance, " and the ex-statesman gained much credit in the highest circles. 

The Senator and the President are excellent men, as any financier will tellyou. They are charitable and genial, social beings, members of clubs, hardworking and intelligent, public spirited, too, --oh, the very best that theRepublic breeds! To see Farrington Beals, gray-haired, thoughtful, almostthe student, clothed in a sober dark suit, with a simple flower in thebuttonhole, and delicate glasses on the bridge of his shapely nose, --to seehim modestly enter the general offices of the Atlantic and Pacific, any onewould recognize an Industrial Flywheel of society. To accompany him overthe system in his car, with a party of distinguished foreign stockholders, was in the nature of a religious ceremony, so much the interests of thisgiant property in his care seemed allied with the best interests of ourgreat land!

Thus Beals men ran the road, --men like John Hamilton Lane, railroad men tothe core, loyal men, devoted to the great A. And P. And traffic increasedmonthly, tonnage mounted, wheels turned faster, long freight trains woundtheir snaky coils through the Alleghanies, over the flat prairies, intoEastern ports, or Western terminals--Traffic, Traffic! And money pouredinto the treasury, more than enough to provide for all those securitiesthat the Senator was so skilled in manufacturing. All worked in thisblessed land of freedom to the glory of Farrington Beals and the profit ofthe great A. And P. 

What has Isabelle to do with all this? Actually she was witness to oneevent, --rather, just the surface of it, the odd-looking, concrete outside!An afternoon early in her married life at Torso, she had gone down to therailroad office to take her husband for a drive in the pleasant autumnweather. As he was long in coming to meet her, she entered the brickbuilding; the elevator boy, recognizing her with a pleasant nod, whiskedher up to the floor where Lane had his private office. Entering the outerroom, which happened to be empty at this hour, she heard voices through thehalf-open door that led to the inner office. It was first her husband'svoice, so low that she could not hear what he was saying. Presently it wasinterrupted by a passionate treble. Through the door she could just seeJohn's side face where he was seated at his desk, --the look she liked best, showing the firm cheek and jaw line, and resolute mouth. Over his desk athin, roughly dressed man with a ragged reddish beard was leaning on botharms, and his shoulders trembled with the passion of his utterance. 

"Mr. Lane, " he was saying in that passionate treble, "I must have themcars--or I shall lose my contract!"

"As I have told you a dozen times, Mr. Simonds, I have done my best foryou. I recognize your trouble, and it is most unfortunate, --but there seemsto be a shortage of coalers just now. "

"The Pleasant Valley company get all they want!" the man blurted out. 

Lane merely drummed on his desk. 

"If I can't get cars to ship my coal, I shall be broke, bankrupt, " the thinman cried. 

"I am very sorry--"

"Sorry be damned! Give me some cars!"

"You will have to see Mr. Brundage at St. Louis, " Lane answered coldly. "Hehas final say on such matters for the Western division. I merely followorders. "

He rose and closed his desk. The thin man with an eloquent gesture turnedand rushed out of the office, past Isabelle, who caught a glimpse of awhite face working, of teeth chewing a scrubby mustache, of blood-shoteyes. John locked his desk, took down his hat and coat, and came into theouter office. He kissed his wife, and they went to drive behind theKentucky horses, talking of pleasant matters. After a time, Isabelle askedirrelevantly:--

"John, why couldn't you give that man the cars he wanted?"

"Because I had no orders to do so. "

"But aren't there cars to be had when the other company gets them?"

"There don't happen to be any cars for Simonds. The road is friendly to Mr. Freke. "

And he closed his explanation by kissing his wife on her pretty neck, asthough he would imply that more things than kisses go by favor in thisworld. Isabelle had exhausted her interest in the troubled man's desire forcoal cars, and yet in that little phrase, "The road is friendly to Mr. Freke, " she had touched close upon a great secret of the Beals regime. Unbeknownst to her, she had just witnessed one of those little moderntragedies as intense in their way as any Caesarian welter of blood; she hadseen a plain little man, one of the negligible millions, being "squeezed, "in other words the operation in an ordinary case of the divine law ofsurvival. Freke was to survive; Simonds was not. In what respects Simondswas inferior to Freke, the Divine Mind alone could say. When thatconvulsive face shot past Isabelle in Lane's office, it was merely thetragic moment when the conscious atom was realizing fully that he was notto be the one to survive! The moment when Suspense is converted intoDespair.... 

Nor could Isabelle trace the well-linked chain of cause and effect that ledfrom Simonds about-to-be-a-bankrupt _via_ Freke and the Pleasant ValleyCoal Company through the glory of the A. And P. (incidentally creating inthe Senator his fine patriotism and faith in the future of his country) toher husband's check-book and her own brilliant little dinner, "where theycould afford to offer champagne. " But in the maze of earthly affairs allthese unlike matters were related, and the relationship is worth ournotice, if not Isabelle's. If it had been expounded to her, if she had seencertain certificates of Pleasant Valley stock lying snugly side by sidewith Torso Northern bonds and other "good things" in her husband'ssafe, --and also in the strong boxes of Messrs. Beals, Thomas, Stanton, _etal_. , she would have said, as she had been brought up to say, "that is myhusband's affair. "... 

The Atlantic and Pacific, under the shrewd guidance of the amiable Senator, was a law-abiding citizen, outwardly. When the anti-rebate laws werepassed, the road reformed; it was glad to reform, it made money byreforming. But within the law there was ample room for "efficient" men toacquire more money than their salaries, and they naturally grasped theiropportunities, as did the general officers. Freke, whom Isabelle disliked, with her trivial woman's prejudice about face and manners, embodied aDevice, --in other words he was an instrument whereby some persons couldmake a profit, a very large profit, at the expense of other persons. The A. And P. 'was friendly to Freke. ' The Pleasant Valley Coal Company neverwanted cars, and it also enjoyed certain other valuable privileges, coveredby the vague term "switching, " that enabled it to deliver its coal into thegaping hulls at tidewater at seventy to eighty cents per ton cheaper thanany of its competitors in the Torso district. No wonder that the PleasantValley company, with all this "friendliness" of the A. And P. , prospered, and that Mr. Freke, under one name or another, swallowed presently, at abargain, the little mine that the man Simonds had struggled to operate, aswell as thousands of acres of bituminous coal lands along the PleasantRiver, and along the Torso Northern road. (Perhaps the inwardness of thatInspection Party can now be seen, also. ) The signs of the Pleasant ValleyCoal Company and its aliases squatted here and there all through the Torsocoal region. As the Senator would say, it was a very successful business, "thanks to the initiative of Mr. Freke. " And that poor Simonds, who hadamply demonstrated his inability to survive, his utter lack of adaptationto his environment, by not being able to be friendly with the great A. AndP. , went--where all the inefficient, non-adaptable human refuse goes--tothe bottom. _Bien entendu!_

Freke was the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, --that is, he was its necessaryphysiognomy, --but really the coal company was an incorporated private farmof the officers and friends of the A. And P. , --an immensely profitablefarm. Lane in his callow youth did not know this fact; but he learned itafter he had been in Torso a few weeks. He was quick to learn, a typicalBeals man, thoroughly "efficient, " one who could keep his eyes where theybelonged, his tongue in his mouth, and his ears open. As he told Isabellethat Sunday afternoon, "he had had many business dealings with Freke, "alias the Pleasant Valley Company, etc. , and they had been uniformlyprofitable. 

For the fatherly Senator and the shrewd Beals believed that the "rightsort" should make a "good thing"; they believed in thrift. In a word, tocut short this lengthy explanation, the great Atlantic and Pacific, one ofthe two or three most efficiently operated railroads in the United States, was honeycombed with that common thing "graft, " or private "initiative"!From the President's office all the way down to subordinates in the trafficdepartment, there were "good things" to be enjoyed. In that growing bunchof securities that Lane was accumulating in his safe, there were, as hasbeen said, a number of certificates of stock in coal companies--and notsmall ones. 

And this is why Lane maintained social as well as financial relations withthe coarse Mr. Freke. And this is why, also, Lane felt that they couldafford "the best, " when they undertook to give a dinner to thedistinguished gentlemen from New York. Of course he did not explain allthis to Isabelle that pleasant Sunday afternoon. Would Isabelle havecomprehended it, if he had? Her mind would have wandered off to anotherdinner, to that cottage at Bedmouth, which she thought of taking for thesummer, or to the handsome figure that John made on horseback. At leastnine out of ten American husbands would have treated the matter as Lanedid, --given some sufficient general answer to their wives' amateurishcuriosity about business and paid their figures due compliments, andthought complacently of the comfortable homes to which they wereprogressing and the cheerful dinners therein, --all, wife, home, dinner, theresult of their fortunate adaptation to the environments they foundthemselves in.... 

Perhaps may be seen by this time the remote connection between that tragicgesture of Frank Simonds on the Saturday afternoon, calling on heaven andthe Divine Mind that pitilessly strains its little creatures through theholes of a mighty colander--between that tragic gesture, I say, andIsabelle's delightful dinner of ten courses, --champagne and terrapin!

 * * * * *

But this tiresome chapter on the affairs of the Atlantic and Pacificrailroad, --will it never be done! So sordid, so commonplace, so newspapery, so--just what everything in life is--when we might have expected for thedollar and a quarter expended on this pound of wood pulp andink, --something less dull than a magazine article; something about amotor-car and a girl with a mischievous face whom a Russian baron seeks tocarry away by force and is barely thwarted by the brave American collegeyouth dashing in pursuit with a new eighty h. P. , etc. , etc. Or at least ifone must have a railroad in a novel (when every one knows just what arailroad is), give us a private car and the lovely daughter of thePresident together with a cow-punching hero, as in Bessie's beloved story. But an entire chapter on graft and a common dinner-party with the champagnedrunk so long ago--what a bore!

And yet in the infinite hues of this our human life, the methods by whichour substantial hero, John Hamilton Lane, amassed his fortune, are worthyof contemplation. There is more, O yawning reader, in the tragic gesture ofragged-bearded Frank Simonds than in some tons of your favorite brand of"real American women"; more in the sublime complacency of Senator AlonzoThomas, when he praised "that great and good man, " and raised to his memoryhis glass of Pommery brut, triple sec, than in all the adventures ofsoldiers of fortune or yellow cars or mysterious yachts or hectic Russianbaronesses; more--at least for the purpose of this history--in John'sanswer to Isabelle's random inquiry that Sunday afternoon than in all the"heart-interest" you have absorbed in a twelvemonth. For in the atmosphereof the ACTS here recorded, you and I, my reader, live and have our being, such as it is--and also poor Frank Simonds (who will never appear again totrouble us). And to the seeing eye, mystery and beauty lie in the hiddenmeaning of things seen but not known.... 

Patience! We move to something more intimate and domestic, if not morethrilling. 

CHAPTER XI

The child was coming!

When Isabelle realized it, she had a shock, as if something quite outsideher had suddenly interposed in her affairs. That cottage at Bedmouth forthe summer would have to be given up and other plans as well. At first shehad refused to heed the warning, --allowed John to go away to New York onbusiness without confiding in him, --at last accepted it regretfully. Sincethe terrifying fear those first days in the Adirondack forest lest shemight have conceived without her passionate consent, the thought ofchildren had gradually slipped out of her mind. They had settled into acomfortable way of living, with their plans and their expectations. "Thatside of life, " as she called it, was still distasteful to her, --she did notsee why it had to be. Fortunately it did not play a large part in theirlife, and the other, the companionable thing, the being admired and petted, quite satisfied her. Children, of course, sometime; but "not just yet. "

"It will be the wrong time, --September, --spoil everything!" she complainedto Bessie. 

"Oh, it's always the wrong time, no matter when it happens. But you'll getused to it. Rob had to keep me from going crazy at first. But in the endyou like it. "

"It settles Bedmouth this year!"

"It is a bore, " Bessie agreed sympathetically, feeling sorry for herself, as she was to have spent six weeks with Isabelle. "It takes a year out of awoman's life, of course, no matter how she is situated. And I'm sofearfully ugly all the time. But you won't be, --your figure is better. "

Bessie, like most childlike persons, took short views of immediate matters. She repeated her idea of child-bearing:--

"I hated it each time, --especially the last time. It did seem sounnecessary--for us.... And it spoils your love, being so afraid. But whenit comes, why you like it, of course!"

John arrived from his hurried trip to New York, smiling with news. He didnot notice his wife's dejected appearance when he kissed her, in hiseagerness to tell something. 

"There is going to be a shake-up in the road, " he announced. "That's whythey sent for me. "

"Is there?" she asked listlessly. 

"Well, I am slated for fourth Vice-president. They were pleased to sayhandsome things about what I have done at Torso. Guess they heard of thatoffer from the D. And O. "

"What is fourth Vice-president?" Isabelle inquired. 

"In charge of traffic west--headquarters at St. Louis!"

He expected that his wife would be elated at this fulfilment of herdesires; but instead Isabelle's eyes unaccountably filled with tears. Whenhe understood, he was still more mystified at her dejection. Very tenderlyholding her in his arms, he whispered his delight into her ears. His facewas radiant; it was far greater news than his promotion to the fourthvice-presidency of the A. And P. 

"And you knew all this time!" he exclaimed reproachfully. 

"I wasn't sure!"

He seemed to take the event as natural and joyful, which irritated herstill more. As Bessie had said, "Whatever ties a woman to the home, makesher a piece of domestic furniture, the men seem to approve of!"

"What a fright I look already!" Isabelle complained, gazing at the darkcircles under her eyes in the glass. She thought of Aline, whose complexionlike a Jacqueminot rose had been roughened and marred. Something stillvirginal in her soul rebelled against it all. 

"Oh, not so bad, " Lane protested. "You are just a little pinched. You'll befitter than ever when it's over!"

The man doesn't care, she thought mutinously. It seems to him the properthing, --what woman is made for. Isabelle was conscious that she was madefor much more, for her own joy and her own activity, and she hated to partwith even a little of it!

He could not understand her attitude. As a man he had retained theprimitive joy in the coming of the child, any child, --but _his_ child andthe first one above all! Compared with that nothing was of the leastimportance. Seeing her pouting into the glass, he said reproachfully:--

"But you like children, Belle!"

And taking her again into his arms and kissing her, he added, "We'll givethe little beggar a royal welcome, girl!"

His grave face took on a special look of content with the world and hisshare in it, while Isabelle continued to stare at herself in the glass andthink of the change a child would make in her life. Thus the woman of thenew generation, with her eagerness for a "large, full life, " feels towardsthat process of nature for which the institution of marriage was primarilydesigned. 

 * * * * *

So for a time longer Isabelle tried to ignore the coming fact, to put itout of her mind, and grasp as much of her own life as she could before thelife within her should deprive her of freedom. As Lane's new duties wouldnot begin until the summer, it was arranged that Isabelle should spend thehot weeks at the Grafton farm with her mother, and then return to St. Louisfor her confinement in her old home. Later they would settle themselves inthe city at their leisure.... It was all so provoking, Isabelle persistedin thinking. They might have had at least a year of freedom in which tosettle themselves in the new home. And she had had visions of a few monthsin Europe with Vickers, who was now in Rome. John might have come overafter her. To give up all this for what any woman could do at any time!

As the months passed she could not evade the issue. By the time she wassettled in her old room at the Farm she had grown anaemic, nervous. Thecoming of the child had sapped rather than created strength as it properlyshould have done. White and wasted she lay for long hours on the loungenear the window where she could see the gentle green hills. Here her cousinAlice Johnston found her, when she arrived with her children to make Mrs. Price a visit. The large, placid woman knelt by Isabelle's side andgathered her in her arms. 

"I'm so glad, dear! When is it to be?"

"Oh, sometime in the fall, " Isabelle replied vaguely, bored that hercondition already revealed itself. "Did you want the first one?" she askedafter a time. 

"Well, not at the very first. You see it was just so much more of a risk. And our marriage was a risk without that.... I hated the idea of becoming aburden for Steve. But with you it will be so different, from the start. Andthen it always makes its own place, you see. When it comes, you will thinkyou always wanted it!"

She smiled in her large human way, as if she had tested the trials of lifeand found that all held some sweet. Isabelle looked down at her thin arms. The Johnstons had four, and they were so poor! As if divining her thought, Alice said:--

"Every time I wondered how we were going to survive, but somehow we did. And now it will all be well, with Steve's new position--"

"What is that?"

"Hasn't John told you? It has just been settled; Steve is going into the A. And P. , --John's assistant in St. Louis. "

"I'm so glad for you, " Isabelle responded listlessly. She recalled nowsomething that her husband had said about Johnston being a good man, whohadn't had his chance, and that he hoped to do something for him. 

"Tremendous rise in salary, --four thousand, " Alice continued buoyantly. "Weshan't know what to do with all that money! We can give the children thebest education. "

Isabelle reflected that John's salary had been five thousand at Torso, andas fourth Vice-president would be ten thousand. And she still had hertwenty-five hundred dollars of allowance from her father. Alice's elationover Steve's rise gave her a sudden appreciation of her husband's growingpower, --his ability to offer a struggling man his chance. Perhaps he coulddo something for the Falkners also. The thought took her out of herself fora little while. Men were free to work out their destiny in life, to gohither and thither, to alter fate. But a woman had to bear children. Johnwas growing all this time, and she was separated from him. She tried tobelieve that this was the reason for her discontent, this separation fromher husband; but she knew that when she had been perfectly free, she hadnot shared largely in his activity.... 

"You must tell me all about the St. Mary's girls, " Alice said. "Have youseen Aline?"

"Yes, --she has grown very faddy, I should think, --arts and crafts and allthat. Isn't it queer? I asked her to visit us, but she has another onecoming, --the third!"

Isabelle made a little grimace. 

"And Margaret?"

"She has suddenly gone abroad with her husband--to Munich. He's given uphis business. Didn't her marriage surprise you?"

"Yes, I thought she was going to marry that Englishman who was at yourwedding. "

"Mr. Hollenby? Yes, every one did. Something happened. Suddenly she becameengaged to this Pole, --a New York man. Very well connected, and has money, I hear. Conny wrote me about him. " ... 

So they gossiped on. When Alice rose to leave her, Isabelle held her largecool hand in hers. The older woman, whose experience had been so unlikehers, so difficult, soothed her, gave her a suggestion of other kinds ofliving than her own little life. 

"I'm glad you are here, " she said. "Come in often, won't you?"

And her cousin, leaning over to kiss her as she might a fretful child whohad much to learn, murmured, "Of course, dear. It will be all right!"

CHAPTER XII

The Steve Johnstons had had a hard time, as Isabelle would have phrased it. 

He had been a faithful, somewhat dull and plodding student at the technicalschool, where he took the civil engineering degree, and had gone forth tolay track in Montana. He laid it well; but this job finished, there seemedno permanent place for him. He was heavy and rather tongue-tied, and madeno impression on his superiors except that of commonplace efficiency. Hedrifted into Canada, then back to the States, and finally found a place inDetroit. 

Here, while working for thirty dollars a week, he met Alice Johnston, --shealso was earning her living, being unwilling to accept from the Colonelmore than the means for her education, --and from the first he wished tomarry her, attracted by her gentle, calm beauty, her sincerity, andbuoyant, healthy enjoyment of life. She was teaching in a girls' school, and was very happy. Other women had always left the heavy man on the road, so to speak, marking him as stupid. But Alice Johnston was keener or kinderthan most young women: she perceived beneath the large body a will, anintelligence, a character, merely inhibited in their envelope of largebones and solid flesh, with an entire absence of nervous system. He wassilent before the world, but not foolish, and with her he was not longsilent. She loved him, and she consented to marry him on forty dollars aweek, hopefully planning to add something from her teaching to the budget, until Steve's slow power might gain recognition. 

"So we married, " she said to Isabelle, recounting her little life historyin the drowsy summer afternoon. "And we were so happy on what we had! Itwas real love. We took a little flat a long way out of the city, and when Icame home afternoons from the school, I got the dinner and Steve cooked thebreakfasts, --he's a splendid cook, learned on the plains. It all wentmerrily the first months, though Aunt Harmony thought I was such a fool tomarry, you remember?" She laughed, and Isabella smiled at the memory of thecaustic comments which Mrs. Price had made when Alice Vance, a poor niece, had dared to marry a poor man, --"They'll be coming to your father for helpbefore the year is out, " she had said. But they hadn't gone to the Colonelyet. 

"Then little Steve came, and I had to leave the school and stay at home. That was hard, but I had saved enough to pay for the doctor and the nurse. Then that piece of track elevation was finished and Steve was out of workfor a couple of months. He tried so hard, poor boy! But he was never meantto be an engineer. I knew that, of course, all along.... Well, the babycame, and if it hadn't been for my savings, --why, I should have gone to thehospital!

"Just then Steve met a man he had known at the Tech, and was given thatplace on a railroad as clerk in the traffic department. He was doubtfulabout taking it, but I wasn't. I was sure it would open up, and eventwenty-five dollars a week is something. So he left for Cleveland a weekafter the baby was born, and somehow I packed up and followed with the babywhen I could. 

"That wasn't the end of hard times by any means. You see Ned came the nextyear, --we're such healthy, normal specimens!" She laughed heartily at thisadmission of her powers of maternity. "And it wasn't eighteen months beforeAlice was coming.... Oh, I know that we belong to the thriftless pauperclass that's always having children, --more than it can properly care for. We ought to be discouraged! But somehow we have fed and clothed 'em all, and we couldn't spare one o' the kiddies. There's James, too, you know. Hecame last winter, just after Steve had the grippe and pneumonia; that was apull. But it doesn't seem right to--to keep them from coming--and when youlove each other--"

Her eyes shone with a certain joy as she frankly stated the woman'sproblem, while Isabelle looked away, embarrassed. Mrs. Johnston continuedin her simple manner:--

"If Nature doesn't want us to have them, why does she give us the power?... I know that is wretched political economy and that Nature really hasnothing to do with the modern civilized family. But as I see other women, the families about me, those that are always worrying over having children, trying to keep out of it, --why, they don't seem to be any better off. Andit is--well, undignified, --not nice, you know.... We can't spare 'em, norany more that may come! ... As I said, I believed all along that Steve hadit in him, that his mind and character must tell, and though it wasdiscouraging to have men put over him, younger men too, at last therailroad found out what he could do. "

Her face beamed with pride. 

"You see Steve has a remarkable power of storing things up in that big headof his. Remembers a lot of pesky little detail when he's once fixed hismind on it, --the prices of things, figures, and distances, and rates anddifferentials. Mr. Mason--that was the traffic manager of our road--happened to take Steve to Buffalo with him about some rate-making business. Steve, it turned out, knew the situation better than all the trafficmanagers. He coached Mr. Mason, and so our road got something it wanted. Itwas about the lumber rate, in competition with Canadian roads. Mr. Masonmade Steve his assistant--did you ever think what an awful lot the rate onlumber might mean to _you_ and yours? It's a funny world. Because Stevehappened to be there and knew that with a rate of so much a thousand feetour road could make money, --why, we had a house to live in for the firsttime!

"Of course, " she bubbled, "it isn't just that. It's Steve's head, --anability to find his way through those great sheets of figures the railroadsare always compiling. He stores the facts up in that big round head andpulls 'em out when they are wanted. Why, he can tell you just what it wouldcost to ship a car of tea from Seattle to New York!"

Isabella had a vision of Steve Johnston's large, heavy head with its thick, black hair, and she began to feel a respect for the stolid man. 

"John said he had great ability, " she remarked. "I'm so glad it all cameout right in the end. "

"I had my first servant when the promotion came, and that spring we took alittle house, --it was crowded in the flat, and noisy. "

"You will find it so much easier now, and you will like St. Louis. "

"Oh, yes! But it hasn't been really bad, --the struggle, the being poor. Yousee we were both well and strong, and we loved so much, and we always hadthe problem of how to live, --that draws you together if you have the realthing in you. It isn't sordid trying to see what a quarter can be made todo. It's exciting. "

As she recalled the fight, a tender smile illuminated her face and curvedher lips upward. To her poverty had not been limiting, grinding, but anexhilarating fight that taxed her resources of mind and body. 

"Of course there are a lot of things you can't have. But most people havemore than they know how to handle, no matter where they are!"

Isabelle was puzzled by this remark, and explained Alice Johnston's contentby her age, her lack of experience, at least such experience as she hadhad. For life to her presented a tantalizing feast of opportunities, and itwas her intention to grasp as many of these as one possibly could. Anyother view of living seemed not only foolish but small-minded. Without anysnobbishness she considered that her sphere and her husband's could not becompared with the Johnstons'. The Lanes, she felt, were somehow called tolarge issues. 

Nevertheless, Isabelle could understand that Alice's marriage was quite adifferent thing from what hers was, --something to glorify all the petty, sordid details, to vivify the grimy struggle of keeping one's head abovethe social waters. 

"Now, " Alice concluded, "we can save! And start the children fairly. But Iwonder if we shall ever be any happier than we have been, --any closer, Steve and I?"

Alice, by her very presence, her calm acceptance of life as it shapeditself, soothed Isabelle's restlessness, suggested trust and confidence. 

"You are a dear, " she whispered to her cousin. "I am so glad you are to benear me in St. Louis!"

CHAPTER XIII

Isabelle saw the fat headlines in the Pittsburg paper that the porterbrought her, --"Congressman Darnell and his wife killed!" The bodies hadbeen found at the bottom of an abandoned quarry. It was supposed thatduring a thunder-storm the night before, as he was driving from Torso tohis farm in company with his wife, the horses had become uncontrollable andhad dashed into the pit before Darnell could pull them up. He had justtaken his seat in Congress. Isabelle remembered that he called the daybefore she left Torso, and when she had congratulated him on his election, had said jokingly: "Now I shall get after your husband's bosses, Mrs. Lane. We shan't be on speaking terms when next we meet. " He seemed gay and vital. So it had ended thus for the tempestuous Kentuckian.... 

John was waiting for her at the station in Torso, where she was to breakthe journey. His face was eager and solicitous. He made many anxiousinquiries about her health and the journey. But she put it all to one side. 

"Tell me about the Darnells. Isn't it dreadful!"

"Yes, " he said slowly, "it is very bad. " Lane's voice was grave, as if heknew more than the published report. 

"How could it have happened, --he was such a good driver? He must have beendrunk. "

"Tom Darnell could have driven all right, even if he had been drunk. I amafraid it's worse than that. "

"Tell me!"

"There are all sorts of rumors. He came up from Washington unexpectedly, and his wife met him at the station with their team. They went to the hotelfirst, and then suddenly started for the farm in the midst of the storm. Itwas a terrible storm.... One story is that he had trouble with a bank; itis even said he had forged paper. I don't know! ... Another story was aboutthe Adams woman, --you know she followed him to Washington.... Too bad! Hewas a brilliant fellow, but he tied himself all up, tied himself all up, "he observed sententiously, thus explaining the catastrophe of an unbalancedcharacter. 

"You mean it was--suicide?" Isabelle questioned. 

"Looks that way!"

"How awful! and his wife killed, too!"

"He was always desperate--uncontrolled sort of fellow. You remember how hewent off the handle the night of our dinner. "

"So he ended it--that way, " she murmured. 

And she saw the man driving along the road in the black storm, his youngwife by his side, with desperate purpose. She remembered his words in theorchard, his wistful desire for another kind of life. "The Adams woman, too, " as John expressed it, and "he couldn't hold his horses. " This naturehad flown in pieces, liked a cracked wheel, in the swift revolution oflife. To her husband it was only one of the messes recorded in thenewspapers. But her mind was full of wonder and fear. As little as she hadknown the man, she had felt an interest in him altogether disproportionateto what he said or did. He was a man of possibilities, of streaks, ofmoods, one that could have been powerful, lived a rich life. And atthirty-three he had come to the end, where his passions and his ideals inperpetual warfare had held him bound. He had cut the knot! And she hadchosen to go with him, the poor, timid wife! ... Surely there were strangeelements in people, Isabelle felt, not commonly seen in her littlewell-ordered existence, traits of character covered up before the world, fissures running back through the years into old impulses. Life might beterrible--when it got beyond your hand. She could not dismiss poor TomDarnell as summarily as John did, --"a bad lot, I'm afraid!"

"You mustn't think anything more about it, " her husband said anxiously, asshe sat staring before her, trying to comprehend the tragedy. "I havearranged to take you on to-morrow. The Colonel writes that your brotherEzra is seedy, --touch of malaria, he thinks. The Colonel is looking forwarda lot to your coming. "

He talked on about the little domestic things, but she held that picture inthe background of her mind and something within her said over and over, 'Why should it be like that for any one!'

And all the next day, on their way to St. Louis, she could not dismiss thethought from her mind: 'Why, I saw him only a few weeks ago. How well heread that poetry, as if he enjoyed it! And what he said that night atdinner he really meant, --oh, he believed it! And he was sorry for hiswife, --yes, I am sure he was sorry for her. But he loved the otherwoman, --she understood him. And so he ended it. It's quite dreadful!'

 * * * * *

The Colonel met them at the station with his new motor. His face was a bitgrave as he said in answer to their inquiry:--

"No, it is not malaria, I am afraid. The doctors think it is typhoid. Therehas been a great deal of it in the city this summer, and the boy wouldn'ttake a vacation, was afraid I would stay here if he did. So I went up toPelee, instead. "

It was typhoid, and young Price died within the week. In the hush thatfollowed the death of her brother Isabelle lay waiting for the coming ofher child.... Her older brother Ezra! He was like a sturdy young tree inthe forest, scarce noticed in the familiar landscape until his loss. Quiet, hard-working "Junior, " as the family called him, --what would the Colonel dowithout him? The old man--now he was obviously old even to Isabelle--wouldcome to her room and sit for long hours silent, as if he, too, was waitingfor the coming of the new life into his house. 

These two deaths so unlike, the tragic end of Darnell and her brother'ssudden removal, sank deep into her, sounding to her in the midst of her ownchildish preoccupation with her own life, the intricacy, the mystery of allexistence. Life was larger than a private garden hedged with personalambitions. She was the instrument of forces outside her being. And in herweakness she shrank into herself. 

They told her that she had given birth to a daughter--another being likeherself!

PART TWO

CHAPTER XIV

Colonel Price was a great merchant, one of those men who have been theenergy, the spirit of the country since the War, now fast disappearing, giving way to another type in this era of "finance" as distinguished from"business. " When the final review was ended, and he was free to journeyback to the little Connecticut village where three years before he had leftwith his parents his young wife and their one child, he was a man just overthirty, very poor, and weak from a digestive complaint that troubled himall his life. But the spirit of the man was unbroken. Taking his littlefamily with him, he moved to St. Louis, and falling in there with a coupleof young men with like metal to himself, who happened also to possess somecapital, he started the wholesale hardware business of Parrott, Price, andCo. , which rapidly became the leading house in that branch of tradethroughout the new West. The capital belonged to the other men, but theleadership from the start to Colonel Price. It was his genius as a trader, a diviner of needs, as an organizer, that within twenty years created theimmense volume of business that rolled through the doors of their oldwarehouse. During the early years the Colonel was the chief salesman andspent his days "on the road" up and down the Mississippi Valley, sleepingin rough country taverns, dining on soda biscuit and milk, driving manymiles over clayey, rutty roads, --dealing with men, making business. 

Meanwhile the wife--her maiden name was Harmony Vickers--was doing her partin that little brick house which the Colonel had taken Lane to see. Thereshe worked and saved, treating her husband's money like a sacred fund to betreasured. When the colonel came home from his weekly trips, he helped inthe housework, and nursed the boy through the croup at night, saving hiswife where he could. It was long after success had begun to look their waybefore Mrs. Price would consent to move into the wooden cottage on a quietcross street that the Colonel wanted to buy, or employ more than oneservant. But the younger children as they came on, first Vickers, thenIsabelle, insensibly changed the family habits, --also the growing wealthand luxury of their friends, and the fast increasing income of the Colonel, no longer to be disguised. Yet when they built that lofty brick house inthe older quarter of the city, she would have but two servants and usedsparingly the livery carriage that her husband insisted on providing forher. The habit of fearsome spending never could wholly be eradicated. Whenthe Colonel had become one of the leading merchants of the city, sheconsented grudgingly to the addition of one servant, also a coachman and asingle pair of horses, although she preferred the streetcars on the nextblock as safer and less troublesome; and she began gradually to entertainher neighbors, to satisfy the Colonel's hospitable instincts, in the stylein which they entertained her. 

Mrs. Price had an enormous pride in the Colonel and in his reputation inSt. Louis, a pride that no duke's wife could exceed. It was the Colonel whohad started the movement for a Commercial Association and was its firstpresident. As his wife she had entertained under her roof a President ofthe United States, not to mention a Russian prince and an English peer. Itwas the Colonel, as she told her children, who had carried through theagitation for a Water Commission; who urged the Park system; who saved theSecond National Bank from failure in the panic days of ninety-three. Sheknew that he might have been governor, senator, possibly vice-president, ifit had not been for his modesty and his disinclination to dip into themuddy pool of politics. As she drove into the city on her errands she wasproudly conscious that she was the wife of the best-known private citizen, and as such recognized by every important resident and every quick-wittedclerk in the stores where she dealt. To be plain Mrs. Ezra Price was amplereward for all the hardship and deprivation of those beginning years!

She was proud, too, of the fact that the money which she spent was honestmoney. For the hardware merchant belonged to the class that made itsfortunes honestly, in the eye of the Law and of Society, also. Althoughlatterly his investments had carried him into real estate, railroads, andbanks, nevertheless it was as the seller of hardware that he wished to beknown. He was prouder of the Lion brand of tools than of all his stockholdings. And though for many years a director in the Atlantic and Pacificand other great corporations, he had always resolutely refused to be drawninto the New York whirlpool; he was an American merchant and preferred toremain such all his life rather than add a number of millions to his estate"by playing faro in Wall Street. "

The American merchant of this sort is fast disappearing, alas! As a classit has never held that position in the East that it had in the West. In theolder states the manufacturer and the speculator have had precedence. Fortunes built on slaves and rum and cotton have brought more honor thanthose made in groceries and dry goods. Odd snobbery of trade! But in thatbroad, middle ground of the country, its great dorsal column, the merchantfound his field, after the War, to develop and civilize. The character ofthose pioneers in trade, men from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, wassuch as to make them leaders. They were brave and unselfish, faithful, andtrusting of the future. With the plainest personal habits and tastes, taking no tarnish from the luxury that rose about them, seeing thingslarger than dollars on their horizon, they made the best aristocracy thatthis country has seen. Their coat of arms bore the legend: Integrity andEnterprise. 

For their fortunes were built not speculatively, but on the ancientprinciples of trade, of barter between men, which is to divine needs andsatisfy them, and hence they are the only fortunes in our rich land that donot represent, to some degree, human blood, the sacrifice of the many forthe few. They were not fattened on a protective tariff, nor dug in wildspeculation out of the earth, nor gambled into being over night on theprice of foodstuffs, nor stolen from government lands, nor made of water inWall Street. These merchants earned them, as the pedler earns the profit ofhis pack, as the farmer reaps the harvest of his seed. They earned them bylabor and sagacity, and having them, they stood with heads erect, lookingover their world and knowing that such as it is they helped to build it. 

The day of the great merchant has already gone. Already the names of thesehonorable firms are mere symbols, cloaking corporate management, trading onthe old personalities. No one saw the inevitable drift clearer than ColonelPrice. In common with his class he cherished the desire of handing on thestructure that he had built to the next generation, with the samesign-manual over the door, --to his son and his grandson. So he had resistedthe temptation to incorporate the business and "take his profits. " Therewas a son to sit in his seat. The sons of the other partners would not befit: Starbird's only son, after a dissipated youth, was nursing himselfsomewhere on the Riviera; his daughter had married an Easterner, and beyondthe quarterly check which the daughter and son received from the business, this family no longer had a share in it. As for Parrott there was a youngerson serving somewhere in the immense establishment, but he had alreadyproved his amiable incapacity for responsibility. The second generation, asthe Colonel was forced to admit, was a disappointment. Somehow thesemerchants had failed to transmit the iron in their blood to their children. The sons and sons-in-law either lacked ability and grit, or were franklydegenerate, --withered limbs!

With the Colonel it had promised to be different; that first boy he hadleft behind when he went to the War had grown up under his eye, wassaturated with the business idea. Young Ezra had preferred to leave themilitary academy where he had been at school and enter the store ateighteen. At twenty-six he had been made treasurer of the firm, only a fewmonths before his death.... The Colonel's thin figure bent perceptiblyafter that autumn of ninety-seven. He erected a pseudo-Greek temple inFairview Cemetery, with the name Price cut in deep Roman letters above thedoor, to hold the ashes of his son, --then devoted all his energies tomeasures for sanitary reform in the city. He was a fighter, even ofdeath.... 

Vickers had cabled at once when the news reached him that he was sailingfor home. He and Isabelle had inherited their mother's nervous constitutionand had come later in the family fortunes. They had known only ease andluxury, tempered as it was by their father's democratic simplicity andtheir mother's plain tastes. Insensibly they had acquired the outlook ofthe richer generation, the sense of freedom to do with themselves what theypleased. Both had been sent East to school, --to what the Colonel had beentold were the best schools, --and Vickers had gone to a great university. 

There for a time the boy had tried to compete in athletics, as the oneinevitable path of ambition for an American boy at college; but realizingsoon that he was too slightly built for this field, he had drifted intodesultory reading and sketching for the college comic paper. Then a socialtalent and a gift for writing music gave him the composition of the scorefor the annual musical play. This was a hit, and from that time he began tothink seriously of studying music. It was agreed in the family that afterhis graduation he should go abroad "to see what he could do. " Ezra hadalready taken his place in the hardware business, and the younger son couldbe spared for the ornamental side of life, all the more as he was delicatein health and had not shown the slightest evidence of "practical ability. "So the summer that he took his degree, a creditable degree with honors inmusic, the Prices sailed for Europe to undertake one of those elaboratetasting tours of foreign lands that well-to-do American families stillessay. In the autumn it concluded by the Colonel's establishing the familyin Munich and returning to his affairs. Vickers had been in Europe most ofthe time since, living leisurely, studying, writing "little things" thatIsabelle played over for the Colonel on the piano. 

 * * * * *

Now he had come home at the family call, --an odd figure it must beconfessed in St. Louis, with his little pointed beard, and thin mustache, his fondness for flowing neckwear and velveteen waistcoats, his littlecanes and varnished boots. And he stayed on; for the family seemed to needhim, in a general way, though it was not clear to him what good he could doto them and there were tempting reasons for returning to Rome. In spite ofthe sadness of the family situation the young man could not repress hishumorous sense of the futility of all hopes built upon himself. 

"Just think of me selling nails, "--he always referred to the hardwarebusiness as "selling nails, "--he said to his mother when she spoke to himof the Colonel's hope that he would try to take his brother's place. "All Iknow about business is just enough to draw a check if the bank will keepthe account straight. Poor Colonel! That germ ought to have got me insteadof Junior!"

"You owe it to your father, Vick. You can't be more useless than BobParrott, and your father would like to see you in the office--for a timeany way. "

Vickers refrained from saying that there was an unmentioned differencebetween him and Bob Parrott. Young Parrott had never shown the desire to doanything, except play polo; while he might, --at least he had the passionfor other things. The family, he thought, took his music very lightly, as akind of elegant toy that should be put aside at the first call of realduty. Perhaps he had given them reason by his slow preparation, his waitingon the fulness of time and his own development to produce results for theworld to see. Isabelle alone voiced a protest against this absorption ofthe young man into the family business. 

"Why, he has his own life! It is too much of a sacrifice, " sheremonstrated. 

"Nothing that can give your father comfort is too much of a sacrifice, "Mrs. Price replied sharply. 

"It can't last long, " Isabelle said to Vickers. "The Colonel will see, --heis generous. "

"He will see that I am no good fast enough!"

"He will understand what you are giving up, and he is too large hearted towant other people to do what they are not fitted to do. "

"I don't suppose that the family fortunes need my strong right armexactly?" the young man inquired. 

"Of course not! It's the sentiment, don't you see?"

"Yes, of course, the sentiment for nails!" the young man acceptedwhimsically. "Poor Junior did the sentiment as well as the business soadmirably, and I shall be such a hollow bluff at both, I fear. "

Nevertheless, the next morning Vickers was at breakfast on time, and whenthe Colonel's motor came around at eight-thirty, he followed his fatherinto the hall, put on an unobtrusive black hat, selected a sober pair ofgloves, and leaving his little cane behind him took the seat beside hisfather. Their neighbor in the block was getting into his brougham at thesame moment. 

"Alexander Harmon, " the Colonel explained, "president of the CommercialTrust Company. "

They passed more of the Colonel's acquaintances on their way down theavenue, emerging from their comfortable houses for the day's work. It wasthe order of an industrial society, the young man realized, in a depressedframe of mind. He also realized, sympathetically, that he was occupying hisbrother's seat in the motor, and he was sorry for the old man at his side. The Colonel looked at him as if he were debating whether he should ask hisson to stop at a barber shop and sacrifice his pointed beard, --but herefrained. 

Vickers had never seen the towering steel and terra-cotta building in whichthe hardware business was now housed. It stood in a cloud of mist and smokeclose by the river in the warehouse district. As the car drew up before itspillared entrance, the Colonel pointed with pride to the brass plaquebeside the door on which was engraved the architect's name. 

"Corbin did it, --you know him? They say he's the best man in America. Itwas his idea to sign it, the same as they do in Paris. Pretty goodbuilding, eh?"

The young man threw back his head and cast a critical glance over thetwelve-story monster and again at the dwarfed classic entrance throughwhich was pouring just now a stream of young men. 

"Yes, Corbin is a good man, " he assented vaguely, looking through the smokedrifts down the long crowded thoroughfare, on into a mass of telegraphwires, masts, and smokestacks, and lines of bulky freight cars. Some hugedrays were backed against the Price building receiving bundles of iron rodsthat fell clanging into their place. Wagons rattled past over the unevenpavement, and below along the river locomotives whistled. Above all was thebass overtone of the city, swelling louder each minute with the day's work. A picture of a fair palace in the cavernous depths of a Sienna street cameover the young man with a vivid sense of pain. Under his breath he mutteredto himself, "Fierce!" Then he glanced with compunction at the gentle oldface by his side. How had he kept so perfectly sweet, so fine in the midstof all this welter? The Colonel was like an old Venetian lord, shrewd withthe wisdom of men, gentle with more than a woman's mercy; but the currentthat flowed by his palace was not that of the Grand Canal, the winds notthose of the Levant!

But mayhap there was a harmony in this shrill battlefield, if it could befound.... 

Within those long double doors there was a vast open area of floor space, dotted with iron beams, and divided economically into little plots byscreens, in each one of which was a desk with the name of its occupant onan enamel sign. 

"The city sales department, " the Colonel explained as they crossed to thebank of shooting elevators. The Colonel was obliged to stop and speak andshake hands with many men, mostly in shirt sleeves, with hats on theirheads, smoking cigars or pipes. They all smiled when they caught sight ofthe old man's face, and when he stopped to shake hands with some one, theman's face shone with pride. It was plain enough that the "old man" waspopular with his employees. The mere handshake that he gave had somethinginstinctively human and kind in it. He had a little habit of kneadinggently the hand he held, of clinging to it a trifle longer than was needed. Every one of the six or seven hundred men in the building knew that thehead of the business was at heart a plain man like themselves, who hadnever forgotten the day he sold his first bill of goods, and respected allhis men each in his place as a man. They knew his "record" as a merchantand were proud of it. They thought him a "big man. " Were he to drop out, they were convinced the business would run down, as if the main belt hadslipped from the great fly-wheel of the machine shop. All the other"upstairs" men, as the firm members and managers of departments werecalled, were nonentities beside "our Colonel, " the "whole thing, " "it, " ashe was affectionately described. 

So the progress to the elevators was slow, for the Colonel stopped tointroduce his son to every man whose desk they passed or whose eye hecaught. 

"My boy, Vickers, Mr. Slason--Mr. Slason is our credit man, Vick--you'llknow him better soon.... Mr. Jameson, just a moment, please; I want you tomeet this young man!"

"If he's got any of your blood in him, Colonel, he's all right, " a beefy, red-faced man jerked out, chewing at an unlighted cigar and looking Vickershard in the face. 

Even the porters had to be introduced. It was a democratic advance! Butfinally they reached the "upstairs" quarters, where in one corner was theColonel's private den, partitioned off from the other offices by groundglass, --a bare space with a little old black walnut desk, a private safe, and a set of desk telephones. Here Vickers stood looking down at theturmoil of traffic in the street below, while his father glanced over amass of telegrams and memoranda piled on his desk. 

The roar of business that had begun to rumble through the streets atdaybreak and was now approaching its meridian stunned the young man'snerves. Deadened by the sound of it all, he could not dissociate from thevolume that particular note, which would be his note, and live oblivious tothe rest.... So this was business! And what a feeble reed he was with whichto prop it! Visions of that other life came thronging to his mind, --thehuman note of other cities he had learned to love, the placid hours ofcontemplation, visions of things beautiful in a world of joy! Humorously hethought of the hundreds of thousands of dollars this busy hive earned eachyear. A minute fraction of its profits would satisfy him, make him richerthan all of it. And he suspected that the thrifty Colonel had much morewealth stored away in that old-fashioned iron safe. What was the use ofthrowing himself into this great machine? It would merely grind the soulout of him and spit him forth. 

To keep it going, --that was the reason for sacrificing his youth, hisdesire. But why keep the thing going? Pride, sentiment? He did not know theColonel's feeling of fatherhood towards all the men who worked for him, hisconviction that in this enterprise which he had created, all these humanbeings were able to live happier lives because of him, his leadership. There was poetry in the old man, and imagination. But the young man, withhis eyes filled with those other--more brilliant--glories, saw only thegrime, heard only the dull roar of the wheels that turned out a meaninglessflood of gold, like an engine contrived to supply desires and reap itspercentage of profits. 

"Father!" he cried involuntarily. 

Hot words of protest were in his throat. Let some other young man be foundto run the machine; or let them make a corporation of it and sell it in themarket. Or close the doors, its work having been done. But give him hislife, and a few dollars!

"Eh, Vick? Hungry? We'll go over to the club for luncheon in just aminute. " And the old Colonel smiled affectionately at his son over hisglasses. 

"Not now--not just yet, " Vickers said to himself, with a quick rush ofcomprehension. 

But the "now" never seemed to come, the right moment for delivering theblow, through all those months that followed, while the young man wassettling into his corner of the great establishment. When the mother orIsabelle confessed their doubts to the Colonel, the old man would say:--

"It will do him no harm, a little of it. He'll know how to look after yourmoney, mother, when I am gone. " And he added, "It's making a man of him, you'll see!"

There was another matter, little suspected by the Colonel, that was rapidlyto make a man of his engaging young son. 

CHAPTER XV

When Vickers Price raised his eyes from his desk and, losing for the momentthe clattering note of business that surged all around him, looked throughdusky panes into the cloud of mist and smoke, visions rose before him thatwere strange to the smoky horizon of the river city.... 

From the little balcony of his room on the Pincio, all Rome lay spreadbefore him, --Rome smiling under the blue heaven of an April morning! Thecypresses in the garden pointed to a cloudless sky. Beyond the city roofs, where the domes of churches rose like little islands, was the green band ofthe Janiculum, and farther southwards the river cut the city and was lostbehind the Aventine. And still beyond the Campagna reached to the hillsabout Albano. 

Beneath he could see the Piazza del Popolo, with a line of tiny cabsstanding lazily in the sunlight, and just below the balcony was a gardenwhere a fountain poured softly, night and day. Brilliant balls of coloredfruit hung from the orange trees, glossy against the yellow walls of thepalazzo across the garden. From the steep street on the other side of thewall rose the thin voice of a girl, singing a song of the mountains, with asad note of ancient woe, and farther away in the city sounded the hoarsecall of a pedler.... This was not the Rome of the antiquary, not the tawdryRome of the tourist. It was the Rome of sunshine and color and music, theRome of joy, of youth! And the young man, leaning there over the ironrailing, his eyes wandering up and down the city at his feet, drank deep ofthe blessed draught, --the beauty and the joy of it, the spirit of youth andromance in his heart.... 

From some one of the rooms behind a neighboring balcony floated a woman'svoice, swelling into a full contralto note, then sinking low and sweet intobrooding contemplation. After a time Vickers went to his work, trying toforget the golden city outside the open window, but when the voice he hadheard burst forth joyously outside, he looked up and saw the singerstanding on her balcony, shading her eyes with a hand, gazing out over thecity, her voice breaking forth again and again in scattered notes, asthough compelled by the light and the joy of it all. She was dressed in aloose black morning gown that rippled in the breeze over her figure. Sheclasped her hands above her bronze-colored hair, the action revealing thepure white tint of neck and arms, the well-knit body of small bones. Shestood there singing to herself softly, the note of spring and Rome in hervoice. Still singing she turned into her room, and Vickers could hear her, as she moved back and forth, singing to herself. And as he hung broodingover Rome, listening to the gurgle of the fountain in the garden, he oftenlistened to this contralto voice echoing the spirit within him.... Sometimes a little girl came out on the balcony to play. 

"Are you English?" she asked the young man one day. 

"No, American, like you, eh?" Vickers replied. 

They talked, and presently the little girl running back into the room spoketo some one: "There is a nice man out there, mother. He says he's American, too. " Vickers could not hear what the woman said in reply.... 

The child made them friends. Mrs. Conry, Vickers learned, was hisneighbor's name, and she was taking lessons in singing, preparing herself, he gathered, for professional work, --a widow, he supposed, until he heardthe little girl say one day, "when we go home to father, --we are goinghome, mother, aren't we? Soon?" And when the mother answered somethingunintelligible, the little girl with a child's subtle tact was silent.... 

This woman standing there on the balcony above the city, --all gold andwhite and black, save for the gray eyes, the curving lines of her supplebody, --this was what he saw of Europe, --all outside those vivid Roman weeksthat he shared with her fading into a vague background. Together theytasted the city, --its sunny climbing streets, its white squares, and darkchurches, the fields beyond the Colosseum, the green Campagna, the vividmornings, the windless moonlight nights! All without this marvellouscircle, this charmed being of Rome, had the formlessness of a distantplanet. Here life began and closed, and neither wished to know what theother had been in the world behind. 

That she was from some Southern state, --"a little tiny place near the Gulf, far from every civilized thing, " Mrs. Conry told him; and it was plainenough that she was meagrely educated, --there had been few advantages inthat "tiny place. " But her sensuous temperament was now absorbing all thatit touched. Rome meant little to her beyond the day's charm, the music itmade in her heart; while the man vibrated to every association, everymemory of the laden city.... 

Thus the days and weeks slipped by until the gathering heat warned them ofthe passing of time. One June day that promised to be fresh and cool theywalked through the woods above the lake of Albano. Stacia Conry hummed thewords of a song that Vickers had written and set to music, one of a cyclethey had planned for her to sing--the Songs of the Cities. This was thesong of Rome, and in it Vickers had embedded the sad strain that the girlsang coming up the street, --the cry of the past. 

"That is too high for me, " she said, breaking off. "And it is melancholy. Ihate sad things. It reminds me of that desolate place at the end of theearth where I came from. "

"All the purest music has a strain of sadness, " Vickers protested. 

"No, no; it has longing, passion! ... I escaped!" She looked down on thecuplike lake, shimmering in the sun below. "I knew in my heart that _this_lived, this world of sunshine and beauty and joy. I thirsted for it. Now Idrink it!"

She turned on him her gray eyes, which were cool in spite of her emotion. She had begun again the song in a lower key, when at a turn in the paththey came upon a little wooden shrine, one of those wayside altars stillleft in a land where religion has been life. Before the weather-stainedblue-and-red madonna knelt a strangely mediaeval figure, --a man wasted andbare-headed, with long hair falling matted over his eyes. An old sheepskincoat came to his bare knees. Dirty, forlorn, leaning wearily on hispilgrim's staff, the man was praying before the shrine, his lips movingsilently. 

"What a figure!" Vickers exclaimed in a low voice, taking from his pocket alittle camera. As he tiptoed ahead of Mrs. Conry to get his picture beforethe pilgrim should rise, he saw the intense yearning on the man's face. Beckoning to his companion, Vickers put the camera into his pocket andpassed on, Mrs. Conry following, shrinking to the opposite side of the way, a look of aversion on her mobile face. 

"Why didn't you take him?" she asked as they turned the corner of the road. 

"He was praying, --and he meant it, " Vickers answered vaguely. 

The woman's lips curved in disgust at the thought of the dirty pilgrim onhis knees by the roadside. 

"Only the weak pray! I hate that sort of thing, --prayer and penitence. "

"Perhaps it is the only real thing in life, " Vickers replied from someunknown depth within him. 

"No, no! How can you say that? You who know what life can be. Never! Thatis what they tried to teach me at school. But I did not believe it. Iescaped. I wanted to sing. I wanted my own life. " She became grave, andadded under her breath: "And I shall get it. That is best, best, best!" Shebroke into a run down the sun-flecked road, and they emerged breathless inan olive orchard beside the lake. Her body panted as she threw herself downon the grass. "Now!" she smiled, her skin all rose; "can you say that?" Andher voice chanted, "To live, --my friend, --to LIVE! And you and I are madeto live, --isn't it so?"

The artist in Vickers, the young man of romance, his heart tender withsentiment, responded to the creed. But woven with the threads of thisartist temperament were other impulses that stirred. The pilgrim in the actof penitence and ecstatic devotion was beautiful, too, and real, --ah, veryreal, as he was to know.... 

They supped that afternoon in a little wine shop looking towards the greatdome swimming above Rome. And as the sun shot level and golden over theCampagna, lighting the old, gray tombs, they drove back to the city alongthe ancient Latin road. The wonderful plain, the most human landscape inthe world, began to take twilight shadows. Rome hung, in a mist of sun, like a mirage in the far distance, and between them and the city flowed themassive arches of an aqueduct, and all about were the crumbling tombs, halfhidden by the sod. The carriage rolled monotonously onwards. The woman'seyes nearly closed; she looked dreamily out through the white lids, fringedwith heavy auburn lashes. She still hummed from time to time the oldrefrain of Vickers's song. Thus they returned, hearing the voice of the oldworld in its peculiar hour. 

"I am glad that I have had it--that I have lived--a little. This, this!--Ican sing to-night! You must come and sit on my balcony and look at thestars while I sing to you--the music of the day. "

As the Porta San Paolo drew near, Vickers remarked:--

"I shall write you a song of Venice, --that is the music for you. "

"Venice, and Paris, and Vienna, and Rome, --all! I love them all!"

She reached her arms to the great cities of the earth, seeing herself intriumph, singing to multitudes the joy of life.... "Come to-night, --I willsing for you!"... 

On the porter's table at the hotel lay a thick letter for Mrs. Conry. Itbore the printed business address, --THE CONRY CONSTRUCTION COMPANY. Mrs. Conry took it negligently in her white hand. "You will come later?" shesaid, smiling back at the young man. 

 * * * * *

Sitting crowded in front of Arragno's and sipping a liqueur, Fosdickremarked to Vickers: "So you have run across the Conry? Of course I knowher. I saw her in Munich the first time. The little girl still with her?Then it was Vienna.... She's got as far as Rome! Been over here two orthree years studying music. Pretty-good voice, and a better figure. Oh, Stacia is much of a siren. "

Vickers moved uneasily and in reply to a question Fosdick continued:--

"Widow--grass widow--properly linked--who knows? Our pretty country-womenhave such a habit of trotting around by themselves for their owndelectation that you never can tell how to place them. She may bedivorced--she may be the other thing! You can't tell. But she is a veryhandsome woman. "... 

Mrs. Conry herself told Vickers the facts, as they sat at a littlerestaurant on the Aventine where they loved to go to watch the night stealacross the Palatine. 

"... He offered me my education--my chance. I took it. I went to theconservatory at Cincinnati. Then he wanted to marry me, and promised tosend me abroad to study more. "... Her tone was dry, impartially recountingthe fact. Then her eyes dropped, and Vickers's cigarette glowed betweenthem as they leaned across the little iron table.... "I was a childthen--did not know anything. I married him. The first years business waspoor, and he could not let me have the money. When times got better, he letme come--kept his promise. I have been here nearly three years, back two orthree times. And now, " her voice dropped, "I must go back for good--soon. "

Nothing more. But it seemed to Vickers as if a ghost had risen from theriver mist and come to sit between them. That the woman was paying a pricefor her chance, a heavy price, he could see. They walked back to the citybetween the deserted vineyards. As they crossed the river, Mrs. Conrystopped, and remarked sombrely, "A bargain is a bargain the world over, isit not?"

Vickers felt the warm breathing woman close to him, felt her brooding eyes. "One pays, " he murmured, "I suppose!"

She threw up her hand in protest, and they walked on into the lighted city. 

 * * * * *

Occasionally Fosdick joined their excursions, and after one of them he saidto Vickers:--

"My friend, she is wonderful; more so every time I see her. But beneaththat soft, rounded body, with its smooth white skin, is something hard. Oh, I know the eyes and the hair and the throat and the voice! I, too, am aman. Paint her, if you like, or set her to music. She is for _bel canto_and moonlight and the voice of Rome. But there is a world outside this all, my friend, to which you and I belong, and _you_ rather more than I.... Stacia Conry doesn't belong at all. "

"Which means?" demanded Vickers steadily of the burly Fosdick. 

"Take care that you don't get stuck in the sea of Sargasso. I thinksomething bitter might rise out of all that loveliness. "

Nevertheless, instead of going to the Maloya with Fosdick, Vickers stayedon in Rome, and September found him there and Mrs. Conry, too, havingreturned to the city from the mountain resort, where she had left thelittle girl with her governess. They roamed the deserted city, and againbegan to work on the songs which Mrs. Conry hoped to give in concerts onher return to America. Very foolish of the young man, and the woman, thusto prolong the moment of charm, to linger in the Sargasso Sea! But at leastwith the man, the feeling that kept him in Rome those summer months waspure and fine, the sweetest and the best that man may know, where he givesof his depths with no thought of reward, willing to accept the comingpain.... Little Delia, who had seen quite as much of Vickers as her mother, said to him the day she left with her governess:--

"We're going home soon--before Thanksgiving. I'm so glad! And you'll bethere, too?"

"I suppose not, Delia, " the young man replied. But as it happened he wasthe first to go back.... 

That late September day they had returned from a ramble in the hills. Itwas nearly midnight when the cab rattled up the deserted streets to theirhotel. As Vickers bade his companion good-night, with some word about along-projected excursion to Volterra, she said:--

"Come in and I will sing for a while. I don't feel like sleep.... Yes, come! Perhaps it will be the last of all our good times. "

In the large dark apartment the night wind was drawing over the roofs ofthe hill through the open windows, fluttering stray sheets of music alongthe stone floor. Mrs. Conry lighted a candle on the piano, and throwingaside her hat and veil, dropping her gloves on the floor, struck some heavychords. She sang the song they had been working over, the song of Venice, with a swaying melody as of floating water-grasses. Then she plunged into athrobbing aria, --singing freely, none too accurately, but with a passionand self-forgetfulness which promised greater things than the concertperformer. From this on to other snatches of opera, to songs, wandering asthe mood took her, coming finally to the street song that Vickers had woveninto his composition for Rome, with its high, sad note. There her voicestopped, died in a cry half stifled in the throat, and leaving the pianoshe came to the window. A puff of wind blew out the candle. With thecurtains swaying in the night wind, they stood side by side looking downinto the dark city, dotted irregularly with points of light, and up abovethe Janiculum to the shining stars. 

"Rome, Rome, " she murmured, and the words sighed past the young man'sears, --"and life--LIFE!"

It was life that was calling them, close together, looking forth into thenight, their hearts beating, the longing to grasp it, to go out alone intothe night for it. Freedom, and love, and life, --they beckoned! Vickers sawher eyes turn to him in the dark.... 

"And now I go, " he said softly. He found his way to the door in the darksalon, and as he turned he saw her white figure against the swayingcurtain, and felt her eyes following him. 

In his room he found the little blue despatch, sent up from his banker, which announced his brother's death, and the next morning he left by theearly express for the north to catch the Cherbourg boat. As he passed Mrs. Conry's salon he slipped under the door the despatch with a note, whichended, "I know that we shall see each other again, somewhere, somehow!" andfrom the piazza he sent back an armful of great white _fleur-de-lys_. Laterthat morning, while Vickers was staring at the vintage in the UmbrianValley and thinking of the woman all white and bronze with the gray eyes, Mrs. Conry was reading his note. A bitter smile curved her lips, as shegathered up the white flowers and laid them on the piano. 

CHAPTER XVI

One winter day while Vickers Price was "selling nails, " as he stillexpressed his business career, there came in his mail a queer littlescrawl, postmarked Pittsburg. It was from Delia Conry, and it ran:--

"We've been home a month. We live in a hotel. I don't like it. The bird yougave me died. Mother says she'll get me a new one. I wish I could see you. Love from Delia. "

But not a word from Mrs. Conry! Fosdick, drifting through Rome on his wayto Turkestan, wrote:--

"... What has become of the Conry? She has disappeared from the cities ofEurope with her melodious songs and beautiful hair. Are you touring theStates with her? Or has she rediscovered Mr. Conry--for a period ofseclusion? ... To think of you serving hardware to the barbarians acrossthe counter enlivens my dull moments. From the Sargasso Sea to St. Louis, --there is a leap for you, my dear. "... 

While he "served hardware to the barbarians" and in other respectsconformed to the life of a privileged young American gentleman, VickersPrice dreamed of those Roman days, the happiest of his life. If that nightthey two had taken life in their hands? ... Could the old Colonel have readhis son's heart, --if from the pinnacle of his years filled with ripe deedshe could have comprehended youth, --he might have been less sure that thehardware business was to be "the making of Vick"!

What had come to her? Had she accepted her lot, once back in the groove offate, or had she rebelled, striking out for her own vivid desire of joy andsong, of fame? Vickers would have liked to hear that she had rebelled, wasmaking her own life, --had taken the other road than the one he had acceptedfor himself. His tender, idealizing heart could not hold a woman to thesterner courses of conduct. 

For, as Fosdick had told him in Rome, the young man was a Sentimentalistwith no exact vision of life. His heart was perpetually distorting whateverhis mind told him was fact. This woman, with her beauty, her love of music, had touched him at the lyric moment of life, when reality was but theunstable foundation for dream. Life as might be, glowing, colored, andsplendid, --life as it was within him, not as this hideous maelstrom allabout him reported. And why not the I, the I! cried the spirit of youth, the egotistic spirit of the age. For all reply there was the bent, grayhead of the Colonel at his desk in the office beside him. "One sentimentagainst another, " Fosdick might say.... 

Finally Stacia Conry wrote, a little note: she was to be in St. Louis onthe fourteenth for a short time and hoped that he would call on her at thehotel. A perfectly proper, colorless little note, written in an unformedhand, with a word or two misspelled, --the kind of note that gave noindication of the writer, but seemed like the voice of a stranger. However, as Vickers reflected, literary skill, the power to write personal littlenotes did not go necessarily with a talent for music--or for life. NannieLawton wrote intimate notes, and other women, single and married, whomVickers had come to know these past months. But their cleverest phrasescould not stir his pulses as did this crude production. 

The woman who was waiting for him in the little hotel parlor, however, gavehim a curious shock, --she was so different in her rich street costume fromthe woman in black and white, whose picture had grown into his memory. Sheseemed older, he thought, thus accounting for that strange idealizing powerof the mind to select from a face what that face has specially given it andcreate an altogether new being, with its own lineaments graven in place ofactual bone and tissue. It takes time to correct this ideal misreport ofthe soul, to accept the fact! Except for the one glance from the gray eyeswhich she gave him as they shook hands, Stacia Conry did not stir the past. But she was voluble of the present. 

"You did not expect this! You see my husband had some work to attend tonear here, and I thought I would come with him.... No, we left Delia inPittsburg with his mother, --she wanted to see you, but she would be in theway. "

They came soon to her singing, and her face clouded. 

"I haven't been able to get an opening. I wanted to sing the Cycle with anorchestra. But I haven't succeeded, --our Pittsburg orchestra won't look atany talent purely domestic. It is all pull over here. I haven't anyinfluence.... You must start with some backing, --sing in private houses forgreat people! We don't know that kind, you see. "

"And concerts?" Vickers inquired. 

"The same way, --to get good engagements you must have something to show.... I've sung once or twice, --in little places, church affairs and that kind ofthing. "

Vickers laughed as Mrs. Conry's expressive lips curled. 

"They tell you to take everything to begin with. But singing for churchsociables in Frankfort and Alleghany, --that doesn't do much! I want to goto New York, --I know people there, but--"

Vickers understood that Mr. Conry objected. 

"It must come sometime, " she said vehemently; "only waiting is killing. Ittakes the life out of you, the power, don't you think?"

"Could you sing here?" Vickers asked, --"now, I mean? I might be able toarrange it. "

"Oh, if you could!" Mrs. Conry's face glowed, and her fingers playednervously with her long chain. "If I could give the Cycle with youraccompaniment, here in St. Louis where you are so well known--"

Vickers smiled at the picture of his debut in St. Louis drawing-rooms. 

"I will ask my sister to help, " he said. "I should like her to call. "

Mrs. Conry became suddenly animated, as if after a period of depressingdarkness she saw a large ray of sunshine. She had thought of possibilitieswhen she had persuaded her husband to take her to St. Louis, but had notexpected them to develop at once. 

"You see, " she continued quickly, "if I can get a hearing here, it meansthat other people may want me, --I'll become known, a little. "

"My mother couldn't have it, " Vickers explained, "nor my sister, because ofour mourning. But Mrs. Lawton, --that would be better any way. " He thoughtof Nannie Lawton's love of _reclame_, and he knew that though she wouldnever have considered inviting the unheralded Mrs. Conry to sing in herdrawing-room, she would gladly have _him_ appear there with any one, playing his own music. 

"Yes, we'll put it through! The Songs of the Cities. " He repeated the wordswith sentimental visions of the hours of their composition. 

"And then I have some more, --Spanish songs. They take, you know! Andfolk-songs. " Mrs. Conry talked on eagerly of her ambitions until Vickersleft, having arranged for Isabelle to call the next day. As he took his wayto the Lawtons' to use his influence with the volatile Nan in behalf ofMrs. Conry, his memory of their talk was sad. 'America, that's it, ' heexplained. 'She wants to do something for herself, to get herindependence. ' And he resolved to leave no stone unturned, no influenceunused, to gratify her ambition. 

So Isabelle called on Mrs. Conry in company with Nannie Lawton. Vickerslittle knew what an ordeal the woman he loved was passing through in thissimple affair. A woman may present no difficulties to the most fastidiouslybred man, and yet be found wanting in a thousand particulars by the womenof his social class. As the two emerged from the hotel, Isabelle lookeddubiously at Mrs. Lawton. 

"Queer, isn't she?" that frank lady remarked. "Oh, she's one of those straypeople you run across in Europe. Perhaps she can sing all right, though Idon't care. The men will be crazy after her, --she's the kind, --red hair andsoft skin and all that.... Better look out for that young brother of yours, Isabelle. She is just the one to nab our innocent Vickie. "

Isabelle's report of her call had some reserves. 

"Of course she is very striking, Vick. But, you see, --she--she isn'texactly our kind!"

"That is Nan, " the young man retorted impatiently. "I never heard you saythat sort of thing before. What on earth is 'our kind'? She is beautifuland has talent, a lot of it, --all she wants is her chance. And whyshouldn't she have it?"

Isabelle smiled at his heat, and replied caressingly:--

"She shall have all that Nan and I can do for her here. But don't befoolish about her. I suspect you could be with a woman--because of yourdear old heart.... If she can't sing a note, she'll make a hit with herlooks, Nan says!"

So the musicale was arranged. There were mostly women in Mrs. Lawton'ssmart little music room when Mrs. Conry rose to sing a series ofintroductory songs. She was very striking, as Isabelle and Mrs. Lawton hadforeseen that she would be, --rather bizarrely dressed in a white and goldcostume that she had designed herself, with a girdle of old stones strungloosely about her waist. She was nervous and sang uncertainly at first sothat Vickers had to favor her in his accompaniment. He could see thetrembling of her white arm beside him. The Cycle of the Cities came nearthe end of the programme, and when Vickers took his seat to play theaccompaniments, he was aware that a number of men had arrived and werestanding in the hall, peering through the doors at the performance. He knewwell enough what the men were thinking of him, sitting there playing hisown songs, --that it was a queer, monkey performance for the son of ColonelPrice! The fine arts are duly recognized in American cities; but thecommercial class, as always has been its wont, places them in a categorybetween millinery and theology. 

She had chosen _Paris_ to open with, and gave the song with assurance, eliciting especially from the men in the hall the first real applause. Thenfollowed _Vienna, Munich_. She was singing well, gaining confidence. Whenit came to _Venice_, --Vickers remembered as he followed her swimming voicethe twilight over the Campagna, the approaching mass of Rome, --even thewomen woke to something like enthusiasm. As she uttered the first note of_Rome_, she glanced down at Vickers, with a little smile, which said:--

"Do you remember? This is _ours_, --I am singing this for you!"

Her face was flushed and happy. She sang the difficult music as she hadsung that last night in Rome, and Vickers, listening to the full voice soclose to him, heard again the high sad note of the street singer, in thegolden spring day, uttering this ancient melody of tears, --only this timeit was woven with laughter and joy. When she finished, he sought her eyes;but Mrs. Conry was sweeping the gathering with a restless glance, thinkingof her encore.... 

Afterwards the women said agreeable things about Vickers's music, especially the _Paris_ and the _Venice_. About Mrs. Conry they said thather voice was good, "somewhat uncultivated, " "too loud for drawing-roommusic, "--safe criticisms. The men said little about the music, but theyclustered around the singer. Mrs. Lawton looked significantly at Isabelleand winked. One old gentleman, something of a beau as well as a successfullawyer, congratulated Vickers on his "tuneful" music. "It must be apleasant avocation to write songs, " he said.... 

They dined at the Lawtons', and afterwards Vickers took Mrs. Conry to thehotel. She was gay with the success she had had, the impression she hadmade on the men. 

"Something'll come of this, I am sure. Do you think they liked me?"

"You sang well, " Vickers replied evasively, "better than well, the _Rome_. "

In the lobby of the hotel she turned as though to dismiss him, but Vickers, who was talking of a change to be made in one of the songs, accompanied herto the parlor above, where they had practised the music in preparation forthe concert. Mrs. Conry glanced quickly into the room as they entered, asif expecting to find some one there. Vickers was saying:--

"I think we shall have to add another one to the Cycle, --_New York_ orsomething to stand for--well, what it is over here, --just living!"

The door of the inner room opened and a man appeared, coatless, with amuch-flowered waistcoat. 

"So you're back, " the man remarked in a heavy voice. 

"My husband, " Mrs. Conry explained, "Mr. Vickers Price!"

Mr. Conry shuffled heavily into the room. He was a large man with a biggrizzled head and very red face, finely chased with purple veins. He gaveVickers a stubby hand. 

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Price. Heard about you from Delia. Sit down. "Conry himself stood, swaying slightly on his stout legs. After a time hechose a seat with great deliberation and continued to stare at the youngman. "Have a cigar?" He took one from his waistcoat pocket and held ittowards the young man. "It's a good one, --none of your barroom smokes, --oh, I see you are one of those cigarette fiends, same as Stacia!"

There was a conversational hiatus, and Vickers was thinking of going. 

"Well, how was the show?" Conry demanded of his wife. "Did you singgood, --make a hit with the swells? She thinks she wants to sing, " heexplained with a wink to Vickers, "but I tell her she's aftersassiety, --that's what the women want; ain't it so?"

"Mrs. Conry sang very well indeed, " Vickers remarked in default of better, and rose to leave. 

"Don't go, --what's your hurry? Have something to drink? I got some in thereyou don't see every day in the week, young man. A racing friend of minefrom Kentuck sends it to me. What's yours, Stacy?" ... 

When the young man departed, Stacia Conry stared at the door through whichhe had disappeared, with a dead expression that had something disagreeablein it. Conry, who had had his drink, came back to the parlor and began totalk. 

"I went to a show myself to-night, seeing you were amusing yourself.... There was a girl there who danced and sang, --you'd oughter seen her.... Well, what are you sittin' staring at? Ain't you coming to bed?"

His wife rose from her seat, exclaiming harshly, "Let me alone!" And Conry, with a half-sober scrutiny of the woman, who had flung herself face down onthe lounge, mumbled:--

"Singing don't seem to agree with you. Well, I kept my word; gave you themoney to educate yourself. " ... 

"And I have paid you!" the wife flashed. "God, I have paid!"

The man stumbled off to bed. 

 * * * * *

Vickers, on leaving the hotel, walked home in the chill night, a sickeningsensation in his heart. If he had been a shrewd young man, he might haveforeseen the somewhat boozy Mr. Conry, the vulgar setting of the woman heloved. If there had been the least thing base in him, he might havewelcomed it, for his own uses. But being a sentimentalist and simple innature, the few moments of intercourse with Mr. Conry had come like arevelation to him. This was what she had sold herself to for her education. This was what she was tied to! And this what she sought to escape from byher music, to place herself and her child beyond the touch of that man!

Vickers in his disgust overlooked the fact that little Delia seemed to loveher father, and that though Conry might not be to his taste, he might alsobe a perfectly worthy citizen, given occasionally to liquor. But love andyouth and the idealizing temperament make few allowances. To give her thatfreedom which her beauty and her nature craved, he would do what he could, and he searched his memory for names and persons of influence in theprofessional world of music. He had the fragments of a score for an operathat he had scarce looked at since he had begun "to sell nails"; butto-night he took it from the drawer and ran it over, --"Love Among theRuins, "--and as he went to sleep he saw Stacia Conry singing as she hadsung that last night in Rome, singing the music of his opera, success andfame at her feet.... 

The something that Mrs. Conry hoped for did come from that introduction atthe Lawtons'. The wife of one of those men she had charmed called on herand invited her to sing "those pleasant little songs Mr. Price wrote foryou" (with Mr. Price's appearance, of course!). And several women, who wereanxious to be counted as of the Lawton set, hastened to engage Mrs. Conryto sing at their houses, with the same condition. Vickers understood themeaning of this condition and disliked the position, but consented in hisdesire to give Mrs. Conry every chance in his power. Others understood thesituation, and disliked it, --among them Isabelle. Nannie Lawton threw ather across a dinner-table the remark: "When is Vick going to offer his'Love Among the Ruins'? Mrs. Conry is the 'ruins, ' I suppose!"

And the musicales, in spite of all that Vickers could do, were onlymoderately successful. In any community, the people who hunt the latestnovelty are limited in number, and that spring there arrived a Swedishportrait painter and an Antarctic traveller to push the beautiful singerfrom the centre of attention. So after the first weeks the engagementsbecame farther spaced and less desirable, less influential. Mrs. Conrystill stayed at the hotel, though her husband had been called to anothercity on a contract he had undertaken. She realized that her debut had notbeen brilliant, but she clung to the opportunity, in the hope thatsomething would come of it. And naturally enough Vickers saw a good deal ofher; not merely the days they appeared together, but almost every day hefound an excuse for dropping in at the hotel, to play over some music, totake her to ride in his new motor, which he ran himself, or to dine withher. Mrs. Conry was lonely. After Isabelle went to California for herhealth, she saw almost no one. The women she met at her engagements foundher "not our kind, " and Nan Lawton's witticism about "the ruins" andVickers did not help matters. Vickers saw the situation and resented it. This loneliness and disappointment were bad for her. She worked at hermusic in a desultory fashion, dawdled over novels, and smoked too manycigarettes for the good of her voice. She seemed listless and discouraged. Vickers redoubled his efforts to have her sing before a celebrated manager, who was coming presently to the city with an opera company. 

'She sees no way, no escape, ' he said to himself. 'One ray of hope, and shewould wake to what she was in Europe!'

In his blind, sentimental devotion, he blamed the accidents of life for herdisappointment, not the woman herself. When he came, she awoke, and it wasan unconscious joy to him, this power he had to rouse her from her apathy, to make her become for the time the woman he always saw just beneath thesurface, eager to emerge if life would but grant her the chance. 

His own situation had changed with the growing year. The Colonel, closelywatching "the boy, " was coming gradually to comprehend the sacrifice thathe had accepted, all the more as Vickers never murmured but kept steadilyat his work. Before Isabelle left for California, she spoke plainly to herfather:--

"What's the use, Colonel! No matter how he tries, Vick can never be likeyou, --and why should he be any way?"

"It won't have done any harm, " the old man replied dubiously. "We'll see!"

First he made his son independent of salary or allowance by giving him asmall fortune in stocks and bonds. Then one day, while Mrs. Conry was stillin the city, he suggested that Vickers might expect a considerable vacationin the summer. "You can go to Europe and write something, " he remarked, inhis simple faith that art could be laid down or resumed at will. Vickerssmiled, but did not grasp the opportunity eagerly. When he told Mrs. Conrythat afternoon of the proposed "vacation, " she exclaimed enviously:--

"I knew you would go back!"

"I am not sure that I shall go. "

She said perfunctorily: "Of course you must go--will you go back to Rome? Ishall be so glad to think you are doing what you want to do. "

He turned the matter off with a laugh:--

"The dear old boy thinks two months out of a year is long enough to give tocomposing an opera. It's like fishing, --a few weeks now and then if you canafford it!"

"But you wouldn't have to stay here at all, if you made up your mind notto, " she remarked with a touch of hardness. "They'll give you what youwant. "

"I am not sure that I want it, " he replied slowly, "at the price. "

She looked at him uncomprehendingly, then perceiving another meaning in hiswords, lowered her eyes. She was thinking swiftly, 'If we could both go!'But he was reflecting rather bitterly on that new wealth which his fatherhad given him, the dollars piling up to his credit, not one of which hemight use as he most dearly desired to use them--for her! With all thispower within his easy reach he could not stretch forth his hand to save ahuman soul. For thus he conceived the woman's need. 

It came to Mrs. Conry's last engagement, --the last possible excuse for herlingering in the city. It was a suburban affair, and the place wasdifficult to reach. Vickers had invited the Falkners to go with them, toprevent gossip, and Bessie willingly accepted as a spree, though she hadconfided to Isabelle that "Mrs. Conry was dreadful ordinary, " "not halfgood enough for our adorable Vickers to _afficher_ himself with. "Nevertheless, she was very sweet to the beautiful Mrs. Conry, as wasBessie's wont to be with pretty nearly all the world. It was late on theirreturn, and the Falkners left them at the station. With the sense thatto-night they must part, they walked slowly towards the hotel, then stoppedat a little German restaurant for supper. They looked at each other acrossthe marble-top table without speaking. The evening had been a depressingconclusion to the concert season they had had together. And that morningVickers had found it impossible to arrange a meeting for Mrs. Conry withthe director of a famous orchestra, who happened to be in the city. 

"You must go to-morrow?" Vickers asked at last. "I may get a reply fromMoller any day. "

Mrs. Conry looked at him out of her gray eyes, as if she were thinking manythings that a woman might think but could not say, before she repliedslowly:--

"My husband's coming back to-morrow--to get me. " As Vickers said nothing, she continued, slowly shaking the yellow wine in her glass until itcircled, --"And it's no use--I'm not good enough for Moller--and you knowit. I must have more training, more experience. "

Vickers did know it, but had not let himself believe it. 

"My little struggle does not matter, --I'm only a woman--and must do as mostwomen do.... Perhaps, who knows! the combination may change some day, and--" she glanced fearlessly at him--"we shall all do as we want inanother world!"

Then she looked at her watch. It was very late, and the tired waiters stoodleaning listlessly against their tables. 

"I am tired, " she said at last. "Will you call a cab, please?"

They drove silently down the empty boulevard. A mist came through the cabwindow, touching her hair with fine points. Her hand lay close to his. 

"How happy we were in Rome! Rome!" she looked out into the dark night, andthere were tears in her eyes. "You have been very good to me, dear friend. Sometime I shall sing to you again, to you alone. Now good-by. " ... 

His hand held hers, while his heart beat and words rose clamorously to hislips, --the words of rebellion, of protest and love, the words of youth. Buthe said nothing, --it was better that they should part without a spokenword, --better for her and better for him. His feeling for her, compact oftenderness, pity, and belief, had never been tested by any clear light. Shewas not his; and beyond that fact he had never looked. 

So the carriage rolled on while the two sat silent with beating hearts, andas it approached the hotel he quickly bent his head and kissed the handthat was in his. 

"Come to-morrow, " she whispered, "in the morning, --once more. "

"No, " he said simply; "I can't. You know why. "

As Vickers stepped out of the cab he recognized Conry. The contractor hadbeen looking up and down the street, and had started to walk away, butturned at the sound of the carriage wheels and came over towards them. Something in his appearance, the slouch hat pulled forward over his face, the quick jerky step, suggested that he had been drinking. Vickers with asensation of disgust foresaw a scene there on the pavement, and he couldfeel the shrinking of the woman by his side. 

"Good evening, Mr. Conry, " Vickers said coolly, turning to give Mrs. Conryhis hand. A glance into Conry's eyes had convinced him that the man was ina drunken temper, and his one thought was to save her from a public brawl. Already a couple of people sauntering past had paused to look at them. Conry grasped the young man by the arm and flung him to one side, andthrusting his other hand into the cab jerked his wife out of it. 

"Come here!" he roared. "I'll show you--you--"

Mrs. Conry, trembling and white, tried to free her arm and cross thepavement. The driver, arranging himself on the seat, looked down atVickers, winked, and waited. Conry still dragged his wife by the arm, andas she tried to free herself he raised his other hand and slapped heracross the face as he would cuff a struggling dog, then struck her again. She groaned and half sank to the pavement. The curious bystanders saidnothing, made no move to interfere. Here was a domestic difference, about awoman apparently; and the husband was exerting his ancient, impregnablerights of domination over the woman, who was his.... 

All these months Vickers had never even in imagination crossed the barrierof Fact. Now without a moment's wavering he raised his hand and struckConry full in the face, and as the man staggered from the unexpected blowhe struck him again, knocking him to the ground. Then, swiftlydisentangling the woman's hand from her husband's grasp, he motioned to thecab driver to pull up at the curb and carried her into the cab. WhenVickers closed the door, the driver without further orders whipped up hishorse and drove into a side street, leaving the group on the pavementstaring at them and at Conry, who was staggering to his feet.... 

Within the cab Mrs. Conry moaned inarticulately. Vickers held her in hisarms, and slowly bending his head to hers he kissed her upon the lips. Herlips were cold, but after a time to the touch of his lips hers respondedwith a trembling, yielding kiss. 

Thus they drove on, without words, away from the city. 

CHAPTER XVII

It had all happened in a brief moment of time, --the blow, the rescue, thekiss. But it had changed the face of the world for Vickers. What hithertohad been clouded in dream, a mingling of sentiment, pity, tender yearning, became at once reality. With that blow, that kiss, his soul had opened to anew conception of life.... 

They drove to the Lanes' house. Isabelle had returned that day fromCalifornia, and her husband was away on business. Vickers, who had alatch-key, let himself into the house and tapped at his sister's door. Whenshe saw him, she cried out, frightened by his white face:--

"Vick! What has happened?"

"Mrs. Conry is downstairs, Isabelle. I want her to stay here with youto-night!"

"Vick! What is it?" Isabelle demanded with staring eyes. 

"I will tell you to-morrow. "

"No--now!" She clutched her wrap about her shiveringly and drew him withinthe room. 

"It's--I am going away, Isabelle, at once--with Mrs. Conry. There has beentrouble--her husband struck her on the street, when she was with me. I tookher from him. "

"Vick!" Her voice trembled as she cried, "No, --it wasn't that!"

"No, " he said gravely. "There was no cause, none at all. He was drunk. ButI don't know that it would have made any difference. The man is a lowbrute, and her life is killing her. I love her--well, that is all!"

"Vick!" she cried; "I knew you would do some--" she hesitated before hisglittering eyes--"something very risky, " she faltered at last. 

He waved this aside impatiently. 

"What will you do now?" she asked hesitantly. 

"I don't know, --we shall go away, " he replied vaguely; "but she is waiting, needs me. Will you help her, --help _us_?" he demanded, turning to the door, "or shall we have to go to-night?"

"Wait, " she said, putting her hands on his arms; "you can't do that! Justthink what it will mean to father and mother, to everybody.... Let me dressand take her back!" she suggested half heartedly. 

"Isabelle!" he cried. "She shall never go back to that brute. "

"You love her so much?"

"Enough for anything, " he answered gravely, turning to the door. 

In the face of his set look, his short words, all the protestingconsiderations on the tip of her tongue seemed futile. To a man in a moodlike his they would but drive him to further folly. And admiration roseunexpectedly in her heart for the man who could hold his fate in his handslike this and unshakenly cast it on the ground. The very madness of it allawed her. She threw her arms about him, murmuring:--

"Oh, Vick--for you--it seems so horrid, so--"

"It _is_ mean, " he admitted through his compressed lips. "For that veryreason, don't you see, I will take her beyond where it can touch her, atonce, this very night, --if you will not help us!"

And all that she could do was to kiss him, the tears falling from her eyes. 

"I will, Vick, dear.... It makes no difference to me what happens, --if youare only happy!"

 * * * * *

As he drove to his father's house in the damp April night, he tried tothink of the steps he must take on the morrow. He had acted irresistibly, out of the depths of his nature, unconcerned that he was about to tear inpieces the fabric of his life. It was not until he had let himself into thesilent house and noiselessly passed his mother's door that he realized insudden pain what it must mean to others. 

He lay awake thinking, thinking. First of all she must telegraph for Deliato meet them somewhere, --she must have the child with her at once; and theymust leave the city before Conry could find her and make trouble.... And hemust tell the Colonel.... 

The next morning when Vickers entered his sister's library, Stacia Conryrose from the lounge where she had been lying reading a newspaper, andwaited hesitantly while he came forward. She was very pretty this morning, with a faint touch of rose beneath her pale skin, her long lashes fallingover fresh, shy eyes. In spite of it all she had slept, while the sleeplesshours he had spent showed in his worn, white face. He put out his arms, andshe clung to him. 

"We must decide what to do, " he said. 

"You will not leave me?" she whispered, her head lying passive against hisbreast. Suddenly raising her head, she clasped her arms about his neck, drawing him passionately to her, crying, "I love you--love you, --you willnever leave me?"

And the man looking down into her eyes answered from his heart in alltruth:--

"Never, never so long as I live!" The words muttered in his broken voicehad all the solemnity of a marriage oath; and he kissed her, sealing thepromise, while she lay passive in his arms. 

Holding her thus to him, her head against his beating heart, he felt thehelplessness, the dependence of the woman, and it filled him with asubdued, sad joy. His part was to protect her, to defend her always, andhis grip tightened about her yielding form. Their lips met again, and thistime the sensuous appeal of the woman entered his senses, clouding for thetime his delicate vision, submerging that nobler feeling which hithertoalone she had roused. She was a woman, --his to desire, to have!

"What shall we do?" she asked, sitting down, still holding his hand. 

"First we must get Delia. We had better telegraph your mother at once tomeet us somewhere. "

"Oh!"

"You must have Delia, of course. He will probably make trouble, try to gethold of the child, and so we must leave here as soon as possible, to-day ifwe can. "

"Where shall we go?" she asked, bewildered. 

"Somewhere--out of the country, " he replied slowly, looking at hersignificantly. "Of course it would be better to wait and have the divorce;but he might fight that, and make a mess, --try to keep the child, youunderstand. "

She was silent, and he thought she objected to his summary plan. But it wason her lips to say, 'Why not leave Delia with him until it can all bearranged?' Something in the young man's stern face restrained her; she wasafraid of outraging instincts, delicacies that were strange to her. 

"Should you mind, " he asked pleadingly, "going without the divorce? Ofcourse to me it is the same thing. You are mine now, as I look at it, --anymarriage would mean little to either of us after--the past! Somehow to hangabout here, with the danger of trouble to you, waiting for a divorce, withthe row and all, --I can't see you going through it. I think the--otherway--is better. "

She did not fully understand his feeling about it, which was that with thesoiled experience of her marriage another ceremony with him would be a merelegal farce. To the pure idealism of his nature it seemed cleaner, noblerfor them to take this step without any attempt to regularize it in the eyesof Society. To him she was justified in doing what she had done, in leavingher husband for him, and that would have to be enough for them both. Hedespised half measures, compromises. He was ready to cast all into hisdefiance of law. Meanwhile she pondered the matter with lowered eyes andpresently she asked:--

"How long would it take to get a divorce?"

"If he fought it, a year perhaps, or longer. "

"And I should have to stay here in the city?"

"Or go somewhere else to get a residence. "

"And we--" she hesitated to complete the thought. 

He drew her to him and kissed her. 

"I think we shall be enough for each other, " he said. 

"I will do whatever you wish, " she murmured, thus softly putting on hisshoulders the burden of the step. 

He was the man, the strong protector that had come to her in her distress, to whom she fled as naturally as a hunted animal flies to a hole, as acrippled bird to the deep underbrush. Her beauty, her sex, herself, hadsomehow attracted to her this male arm, and the right to take it neveroccurred to her. He loved her, of course, and she would make him love hermore, and all would be well. If he had been penniless, unable to give herthe full protection that she needed, then they would have been obliged toconsider this step more carefully, and doubts might have forced themselvesupon her. But as it was she clung to him, trusting to the power of her sexto hold him constant, to shield her.... 

"Now I must go down to the office to see my father, " Vickers said finally. "I'll be back early in the afternoon, and then--we will make our plans. "

"Will you tell him, your father?" Mrs. Conry asked tensely. 

"He will have to know, of course. " As he spoke a wave of pain shot over theyoung man's face. He stepped to the door and then turned:--

"You will telegraph about Delia, --she might meet us in New York--in twodays. "

"Very well, " Mrs. Conry murmured submissively. 

 * * * * *

The Colonel was sitting in his little corner office before theold-fashioned dingy desk, where he had transacted so many affairs of onesort or another for nearly thirty years. He was not even reading his mailthis morning, but musing, as he often was when the clerks thought that hewas more busily employed. Isabelle and her child had returned fromCalifornia, the day before. She had not recovered from bearing the child, and the St. Louis doctors who had been consulted had not helped her. Itmight be well to see some one in New York.... But the Colonel was thinkingmost of all this morning of his son. The tenacious old merchant waswondering whether he had done right in accepting the young man's sacrifice. In his disgust for the do-nothing, parasitic offspring about him, perhapshe had taken a delicate instrument and blunted it by setting it at coarsework. Well, it was not too late to change that. 

'The boy didn't start right, ' the Colonel mused sadly. 'He didn't startselling hardware on the road. He's done his best, and he's no such dufferas Parrott's boy anyhow. But he would make only a front office kind ofbusiness man. The business must get on by itself pretty soon. Perhaps thatidea for a selling company would not be a bad thing. And that would be theend of Parrott and Price. '

Nevertheless, the old man's heart having come slowly to this generousdecision was not light, --if the other boy had lived, if Belle had marriedsome one who could have gone into the business. The bricks and mortar ofthe building were part of his own being, and he longed to live out theselast few years in the shadow of his great enterprise.... 

"Father, can I see you about something important?"

The Colonel, startled from his revery, looked up at his son with his sweetsmile. 

"Why, yes, my boy, --I wasn't doing much, and I had something to say to you. Sit down. You got away from home early this morning. "

He glanced inquiringly at his son's white, set face and tense lips. Playingwith his eye-glasses, he began to talk lightly of other matters, as was hiswont when he felt the coming of a storm. 

Vickers listened patiently, staring straight across his father to the wall, and when the Colonel came to a full pause, "Father, you said you were ready for me to take a vacation. I must go atonce, to-day if possible. And, father, I can't come back. "

The old man moved slightly in his chair. It was his intention to offer theyoung man his freedom, but it hurt him to have it taken for granted in thislight manner. He waited. 

"Something has happened, " Vickers continued in a low voice, "somethingwhich will alter my whole life. "

The Colonel still waited. 

"I love a woman, and I must take her away from here at once. "

"Who is she?" the old man asked gently. 

"Mrs. Conry--"

"But she's a married woman, isn't she, Vick?"

"She has a dirty brute of a husband--she's left him forever!"

The Colonel's blue eyes opened in speechless surprise, as his son went onto tell rapidly what had happened the previous night. Before he hadfinished the old man interrupted by a low exclamation:--

"But she is a married woman, Vickers!"

"Her marriage was a mistake, and she's paid for it, poor woman, --paid withsoul and body! She will not pay any longer. "

"But what are you going to do, my boy?"

"I love her, father. I mean to take her away, at once, take her and herchild. "

"Run away with a married woman?" The Colonel's pale face flushed slightly, less in anger than in shame, and his eyes fell from his son's face. 

"I wish with all my heart it wasn't so, of course; that she wasn't married, or that she had left him long ago. But that can't be helped. And I don'tsee how a divorce could make any difference, and it would take a long time, and cause a dirty mess. He's the kind who would fight it for spite, orblackmail. Perhaps later it will come. Now she must not suffer any more. Ilove her all the deeper for what she has been through. I want to make herlife happy, make it up to her somehow, if I can. "

The Colonel rose and with an old man's slow step went over to the officedoor and locked it. 

"Vickers, " he said as he turned around from the door, still averting hisshamed face, "you must be crazy, out of your mind, my son!"

"No, father, " the young man replied calmly; "I was never surer of anythingin my life! I knew it would hurt you and mother, --you can't understand. Butyou must trust me in this. It has to be. "

"Why does it have to be?"

"Because I love her!" he burst out. "Because I want to save her from thatman, from the degradation she's lived in. With me she will have some joy, at last, --her life, her soul, --oh, father, you can't say these things toany one! You can't give good reasons. "

The old merchant's face became stern as he replied:--

"You wish to do all this for her, and yet you do not mean to marry her. "

"I can't marry her! I would to-day if I could. Some day perhaps wecan, --for the sake of the child it would be better. But that makes nodifference to me. It is the same as marriage for us--"

"'Doesn't make any difference'--'the same as marriage'--what are youtalking about?"

The young man tried to find words which would fully express his feeling. Hehad come a long way these last hours in his ideas of life; he saw thingsnaked and clear cut, without dubious shades. But he had to realize now thatwhat _his_ soul accepted as incontrovertible logic was meaningless toothers. 

"I mean, " he said at last slowly, "that this woman is the woman I love. Icare more for her happiness, for her well-being than for anything else inlife. And so no matter how we arrange to live, she is all that a woman canbe to a man, married or not as it may happen. "

"To take another man's wife and live with her!" the Colonel summed upbitterly. "No, Vick, you don't mean that. You can't do a dirty thing likethat. Think it over!"

So they argued a little while longer, and finally the old man pleaded withhis son for time, offering to see Mrs. Conry, to help her get a separationfrom her husband, to send her abroad with her child, --to all of whichVickers replied steadily:--

"But I love her, father--you forget that! And she needs me now!"

"Love her!" the old man cried. "Don't call that love!"

Vickers shut his lips and rose, very white. 

"I must go now. Let's not say any more. We've never had any bitter wordsbetween us, father. You don't understand this--do you think I would hurtyou and mother, if it didn't have to be? I gave up my own life, when it wasonly myself at stake; but I cannot give her up--and everything it will meanto her. "

The Colonel turned away his face and refused to see his son's outstretchedhand. He could not think without a blush that his son should be able tocontemplate this thing. Vickers, as he turned the handle of the door, recollected something and came back. 

"Oh, you must cancel that stock agreement. I shouldn't want to own it nowthat I have quit. The other things, the money, I shall keep. You would likeme to have it, father, and it will be quite enough. "

The old man made a gesture as if to wave aside the money matter. 

"Good-by, father!" he said slowly, tenderly. 

"You'll see your mother?"

"Yes--I'm going there now. "

Thus father and son parted. 

 * * * * *

Nothing, it seemed to Vickers, after this painful half hour, could be asmiserable as what he had been through, and as a matter of fact hisinterview with his mother was comparatively easy. 

To Mrs. Price her son's determination was merely an unexpected outburst ofwild folly, such as happened in other families, --coming rather late inVick's life, but by no means irremediable. Vickers had fallen into thehands of a designing woman, who intended to capture a rich man's son. Herfirst thought was that the Colonel would have to buy Mrs. Conry off, as Mr. Stewart had done in a similar accident that befell Ted Stewart, and whenVickers finally made it plain to her that his was not that kind of case, she fell to berating him for the scandal he would create by "trapesing offto Europe with a singer. " Oddly enough that delicate modesty, like awoman's, which had made it almost impossible for the Colonel to mention theaffair, did not seem to trouble her. To live with another man's wife was inthe Colonel's eyes a sin little short of incest, and more shocking thanmany kinds of murder. But his wife, with a deeper comprehension of thepowers of her sex, of the appeal of woman to man, saw in it merely aweakness that threatened to become a family disgrace. When she found afteran hour's talk that her arguments made no impression, while Vickers sat, harassed and silent, his head resting on his hands, she burst into tears. 

"It's just like those things you read of in the papers, " she sobbed, "thosequeer Pittsburg people, who are always doing some nasty thing, and nodecent folks will associate with them. "

"It's not the thing you do, mother; it's the way you do it, the purpose, the feeling, " the young man protested. "And there won't be a scandal, ifthat's what's troubling you. You can tell your friends that I have goneabroad suddenly for my health. "

"Who would believe that? Do you think her husband's going to keep quiet?"Mrs. Price sniffled, with considerable worldly wisdom. 

"Well, let them believe what they like. They'll forget me in a week. "

"Where are you going?"

"To Europe, somewhere, --I haven't thought about the place. I'll let youknow. "

"And how about her child?"

"We shall take her with us. "

"She wants her along, does she?"

"Of course!"

Vickers rose impatiently. 

"Good-by, mother. "

She let him kiss her. 

"I shall come to see you sometimes, if you want me to. "

"Oh, you'll be coming back fast enough, " she retorted quickly. 

And then she straightened the sofa pillows where he had been sitting andpicked up a book she had been reading. As Vickers went to his room to get abag, Isabelle opened the door of her mother's room, where she had beenwaiting for him. She put her arms about his neck, as she had that night ofher marriage on the station platform at Grafton, and pressed him tightly toher. 

"Vick! Vick!" she cried. "That it had to be like this, your love! Likethis!"

"It had to be, Belle, " he answered with a smile. "It comes to us indifferent ways, old girl. "

"But you! You!" She led him by the hand to the sofa, where she threwherself, a white exhausted look coming into her face. He stroked her hairwith the ends of his fingers. Suddenly she half turned, grasping his handwith both of hers. 

"Can you be happy--really happy?"

"I think so; but even that makes no difference, perhaps. I should do it allthe same, if I knew it meant no happiness for me. "

She looked at him searchingly, trying to read his heart in his eyes. Afterthe year of her marriage, knowing now the mystery of human relations, shewondered whether he might not be right. That precious something, pain orjoy, which was wanting in her union he might find in this forbiddenby-path, in this woman who seemed to her so immeasurably beneath herbrother. She kissed him, and he went away. 

When the hall door clicked, she rose from the lounge and dragged herself tothe window to watch him, holding her breath, her heart beating rapidly, almost glad that he was strong enough to take his fate in his hands, totest life, to break the rules, to defy reason! "Vick, dear Vick, " shemurmured. 

In the room below Mrs. Price, also, was looking out of the bay window, watching her son disappear down the avenue. She had not been reading, andshe had heard him come down into the hall, but let him go without anotherword. He walked slowly, erect as the Colonel used to walk. Tears droppedfrom her eyes, --tears of mortification. For in her heart she knew that hewould come back some day, this woman who had lured him having fallen fromhim like a dead leaf. She sat on at the window until the Colonel's figureappeared in the distance coming up the avenue. His head was bent; he lookedneither to the right nor to the left; and he walked very slowly, like anold man, dragging his feet after him. He was crushed. It would not havebeen thus if he had lost his fortune, the work of all his years. Such afate he would have looked in the eye, with raised head.... 

That night Vickers and Stacia Conry left for New York, and a few days laterMrs. Price read their names in a list of outgoing passengers for Genoa. Shedid not show the list to the Colonel, and their son's name was nevermentioned in the house. 

When the people who knew the Prices intimately began to whisper, thenchatter, they said many hard things of Vickers, chiefly that he was a Fool, a judgment that could not be gainsaid. Nevertheless the heart of a Fool maybe pure. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Isabelle did not regain her strength after the birth of her child. She laynerveless and white, so that her husband, her mother, the Colonel, allbecame alarmed. The celebrated accoucheur who had attended her alarmed themstill more. 

"Something's wrong, --she couldn't stand the strain. Oh, it's another caseof American woman, --too finely organized for the plain animal duties. A lotof my women patients are the same way. They take child-bearinghard, --damned hard.... What's the matter with them? I don't know!" heconcluded irritably. "She must just go slow until she gets back herstrength. "

She went "slow, " but Nature refused to assert itself, to proclaim the willto live. For months the days crept by with hardly a sign of change in hercondition, and then began the period of doctors. The family physician, whohad a reputation for diagnosis, pronounced her case "anaemia and nervousdebility. " "She must be built up, --baths, massage, distraction. " Of courseshe was not to nurse her child, and the little girl was handed over to atrained nurse. Then this doctor called in another, a specialist in nerves, who listened to all that the others said, tapped her here and there, andwished the opinion of an obstetrical surgeon. After his examination therewas a discussion of the advisability of "surgical interference, " and theconclusion "to wait. "

"It may be a long time--years--before Mrs. Lane fully recovers her tone, "the nerve specialist told the husband. "We must have patience. It would bea good thing to take her to Europe for a change. "

This was the invariable suggestion that he made to his wealthy patientswhen he saw no immediate results from his treatment. It could do no harm, Europe, and most of his patients liked the prescription. They returned, tobe sure, in many cases in about the same condition as when they left, ormerely rested temporarily, --but of course that was the fault of thepatient. 

When Lane objected that it would be almost impossible for him to leave hisduties for a trip abroad and that he did not like to have his wife gowithout him, the specialist advised California:--

"A mild climate where she can be out-of-doors and relaxed. "

Isabelle went to California with her mother, the trained nurse, and thechild. But instead of the "mild climate, " Pasadena happened to be raw andrainy. She disliked the hotel, and the hosts of idle, overdressed, andvulgar women. So her mother brought her back, as we have seen, and thenthere was talk of the Virginia Springs, "an excellent spring climate. "

A new doctor was called in, who had his own peculiar regime of sprays andbaths, of subcutaneous medicine, and then a third nerve specialist, whosaid, "We must find the right key, " and looked as if he might have it inhis office. 

"The right key?"

"Her combination, the secret of her vitality. We must find it forher, --distraction, a system of physical exercises, perhaps. But we mustoccupy the mind. Those Christian Scientists have an idea, you know, --notthat I recommend their tomfoolery; but we must accomplish their results byscientific means. " And he went away highly satisfied with his liberality ofview.... 

On one vital point the doctors were hopelessly divided. Some thoughtIsabelle should have another child, "as soon as may be, "--it was a chancethat Nature might take to right matters. The others strongly dissented: achild in the patient's present debilitated condition would be criminal. Asthese doctors seemed to have the best of the argument, it was decided thatfor the present the wife should remain sterile, and the physiciansundertook to watch over the life process, to guard against its assertingits rights. 

The last illusions of romance seemed to go at this period. The simple oldtale that a man and a woman loving each other marry and have the childrenthat live within them and come from their mutual love has been rewrittenfor the higher classes of American women, with the aid of science. Health, economic pressure, the hectic struggle to survive in an ambitious worldhave altered the simple axioms of nature. Isabelle accepted easily thejudgment of the doctors, --she had known so many women in a like case. Yetwhen she referred to this matter in talking to Alice Johnston, she caughtan odd look on her cousin's face. 

"I wonder if they know, the doctors--they seem always to be finding excusesfor women not to have children.... We've been all through that, Steve andI; and decided we wouldn't have anything to do with it, no matter whathappened. It--tarnishes you somehow, and after all does it help? There'sLulu Baxter, living in daily fear of having a child because they think theyare too poor. He gets twenty-five hundred from the road--he's under Steve, you know--and they live in a nice apartment with two servants andentertain. They are afraid of falling in the social scale, if they shouldlive differently. But she's as nervous as a witch, never wholly well, andthey'll just go on, as he rises and gets more money, adding to theirexpenses. They will never have money enough for children, or only for one, maybe, --no, I don't believe it pays!"

"But she's so pretty, and they live nicely, " Isabelle protested, and added, "There are other things to live for besides having a lot of children--"

"What?" the older woman asked gravely. 

"Your husband"; and thinking of John's present homeless condition, shecontinued hastily, "and life itself, --to be some one, --you owe something toyourself. "

"Yes, " Alice assented, smiling, --"if we only knew what it was!"

"Besides if we were all like you, Alice dear, we should be paupers. Even wecan't afford--"

"We should be paupers together, then! No, you can't convince me--it'sagainst Nature. "

"All modern life is against Nature, " the young woman retorted glibly; "justat present I regard Nature as a mighty poor thing. "

She stretched her thin arms behind her head and turned on the lounge. 

"That's why the people who made this country are dying out so rapidly, giving way before Swedes and Slavs and others, --because those people arewilling to have children. "

"Meantime we have the success!" Isabelle cried languidly. "_Apres nous_ theSlavs, --we are the flower! An aristocracy is always nourished onsterility!"

"Dr. Fuller!" Alice commented.... "So the Colonel is going with you to theSprings?"

"Yes, poor old Colonel!--he must get away--he's awfully broken up, " and sheadded sombrely. "That's one trouble with having children, --you expect themto think and act like you. You can't be willing to let them be themselves. "

"But, Isabelle!"

"Oh, I know what you are going to say about Vick. I have heard it over andover. John has said it. Mother has said it. Father looks it. You needn'tbother to say it, Alice!" She glanced at her cousin mutinously. "Johnthought I was partly to blame; that I ought to have been able to controlVick. He speaks as if the poor boy were insane or drunk orsomething--because he did what he did!"

"And you?"

Isabelle sat upright, leaning her head thoughtfully on her hands, andstaring with bright eyes at Alice. 

"Do you want to know what I really believe? ... I have done a lot ofthinking these months, all by myself. Well, I admire Vick tremendously; hehad the courage--"

"Does that take courage?"

"Yes! For a man like Vickers.... Oh, I suppose she is horrid and not worthit--I only hope he will never find it out! But to love any one enough to bewilling, to be glad to give up your life for him, for her--why, it istremendous, Alice! ... Here is Tots, " she broke off as the nurse wheeledthe baby through the hall, --"Miss Marian Lane.... Nurse, cover up her facewith the veil so her ladyship won't get frostbitten, " and Isabelle sankback again with a sigh on the lounge and resumed the thread of her thought. "And I am not so sure that what John objects to isn't largely themess, --the papers, the scandal, the fact they went off without waiting fora divorce and all that. Of course that wasn't pleasant for respectable folklike the Lanes and the Prices. But why should Vickers have given up whatseemed to him right, what was his life and hers, just for our prejudicesabout not having our names in the papers?"

"That wasn't all!"

"Well, I shall always believe in Vick, no matter what comes of it.... Marriage--the regular thing--doesn't seem to be such a great success withmany people, I know. Perhaps life would be better if more people had Vick'scourage!"

Isabelle forced her point with an invalid's desire to relieve a waywardfeeling and also a childish wish to shock this good cousin, who saw lifesimply and was so sure of herself. Alice Johnston rose with a smile. 

"I hope you will be a great deal stronger when you come back, dear. "

"I shall be--or I shall have an operation. I don't intend to remain in thenoble army of N. P. 's. "

"How is John?"

"Flourishing and busy--oh, tremendously busy! He might just as well live inNew York or Washington for all I see of him. "

"Steve says he is very clever and successful, --you must be so proud!"

Isabelle smiled. "Of course! But sometimes I think I should like asubstitute husband, one for everyday use, you know!"

"There are plenty of that kind!" laughed Alice. "But I don't believe theywould satisfy you wholly. "

"Perhaps not.... How is Steve? Does he like his new work?"

"Yes, " Alice replied without enthusiasm. "He's working very hard, too. "

"Oh, men love it, --it makes them feel important. "

"Did you ever think, Belle, that men have difficulties to meet, --problemsthat we never dream of?"

"Worse than the child-bearing question?" queried Isabelle, kicking out thefolds of her tea-gown with a slippered foot. 

"Well, different; harder, perhaps.... Steve doesn't talk them over as heused to with me. "

"Too tired. John never talks to me about business. We discuss what the lastdoctor thinks, and how the baby is, and whether we'll take the Jacksonhouse or build or live at the Monopole and go abroad, and Nan Lawton'slatest, --really vital things, you see! Business is such a bore. "

The older woman seemed to have something on her mind and sat down again atthe end of the lounge. 

"By the way, " Isabelle continued idly, "did you know that the Falkners werecoming to St. Louis to live? John found Rob a place in the terminal work. It isn't permanent, but Bessie was crazy to come, and it may be an opening. She is a nice thing, --mad about people. "

"But, Isabelle, " her cousin persisted, "don't you want to know the thingsthat make your husband's life, --that go down to the roots?"

"If you mean business, no, I don't. Besides they are confidential matters, I suppose. He couldn't make me understand.... "

"They have to face the fight, the men; make the decisions that count--forcharacter. "

"Of course, --John attends to that side and I to mine. We should be treadingon each other's toes if I tried to decide his matters for him!"

"But when they are questions of right and wrong--"

"Don't worry. Steve and John are all right. Besides they are only officers. You don't believe all that stuff in the magazines about Senator Thomas andthe railroads? John says that is a form of modern blackmail. "

"I don't know what to believe, " the older woman replied. "I know it'sterrible, --it's like war!"

"Of course it's war, and men must do the fighting. "

"And fight fair. "

"Of course, --as fair as the others. What are you driving at?"

"I wonder if the A. And P. Always fights fair?"

"It isn't a charitable organization, my dear.... But Steve and John arejust officers. They don't have to decide. They take their orders fromheadquarters and carry them out. "

"No matter what they are?"

"Naturally, --that's what officers are for, isn't it? If they don't want tocarry them out, they must resign. "

"But they can't always resign, "

"Why not?"

"Because of you and me and the children!"

"Oh, don't worry about it! They don't worry. That's what I like a man for. If he's good for anything, he isn't perpetually pawing himself over. "

This did not seem wholly to satisfy Alice, but she leaned over Isabelle andkissed her:--

"Only get well, my dear, and paw some of your notions over, --it won't doyou any harm!"

That evening when the Lanes were alone, after they had discussed the topicsthat Isabelle had enumerated, with the addition of the arrangements for thetrip to the Springs, Isabelle asked casually:--

"John, is it easy to be honest in business?"

"That depends, " he replied guardedly, "on the business and the man. Why?"

"You don't believe what those magazine articles say about the Senator andthe others?"

"I don't read them. "

"Why?"

"Because the men who write them don't understand the facts, and what theyknow they distort--for money. "

"Um, " she observed thoughtfully. "But are there facts--like those? _You_know the facts. "

"I don't know all of them. "

"Are those you know straight or crooked?" she asked, feeling considerableinterest in the question, now that it was started. 

"I don't know what you would mean by crooked, --what is it you want toknow?"

"Are you honest?" she asked with mild curiosity. "I mean in the way ofrailroad business. Of course I know you are other ways. "

Lane smiled at her childlike seriousness. 

"I always try to do what seems to me right under the circumstances. "

"But the circumstances are sometimes--queer?"

"The circumstances are usually complex. "

"The circumstances are complex, " she mused aloud. "I'll tell Alice that. "

"What has Alice to do with it?"

"She seems bothered about the circumstances--that's all, --the circumstancesand Steve. "

"I guess Steve can manage the circumstances by himself, " he replied coldly, turning over the evening paper. "She probably reads the magazines andbelieves all she hears. "

"All intelligent women read the magazines--and believe what they hear orelse what their husbands tell them, " she rejoined flippantly. Presently, asLane continued to look over the stock page of the paper, she observed:--

"Don't you suppose that in Vickers's case the circumstances may havebeen--complex?"

Lane looked at her steadily. 

"I can't see what that has to do with the question. "

"Oh?" she queried mischievously. He considered the working of her mind asmerely whimsical, but she had a sense of logical triumph over the man. Apparently he would make allowances of "circumstances" in business, hislife, that he would not admit in private affairs. As he kissed her and wasturning out the light, before joining the Colonel for another cigar, sheasked:--

"Supposing that you refused to be involved in circumstances thatwere--complex? What would happen?"

"What a girl!" he laughed cheerfully. "For one thing I think we should notbe going to the Springs to-morrow in a private car, or buying the Jacksonhouse--or any other. Now put it all out of your head and have a good rest. "

He kissed her again, and she murmured wearily:--

"I'm so useless, --they should kill things like me! How can you love me?"

She was confident that he did love her, that like so many husbands he hadaccepted her invalidism cheerfully, with an unconscious chivalry for thewife who instead of flowering forth in marriage had for the time beingwithered. His confidence, in her sinking moods like this, that it would allcome right, buoyed her up. And John was a wise man as well as a goodhusband; the Colonel trusted him, admired him. Alice Johnston's doubtsslipped easily from her mind. Nevertheless, there were now two subjects ofserious interest that husband and wife would always avoid, --Vickers, andbusiness honesty!

She lay there feeling weak and forlorn before the journey, preoccupied withherself. These days she was beset with a tantalizing sense that life wasslipping past her just beyond her reach, flowing like a mighty river toissues that she was not permitted to share. And while she was forced to lieuseless on the bank, her youth, her own life, was somehow running out, too. Just what it was that she was missing she could not say, --somethingalluring, something more than her husband's activity, than her child, something that made her stretch out longing hands in the dark.... She wouldnot submit to invalidism. 

CHAPTER XIX

The Virginia mountains made a narrow horizon of brilliant blue. On theirlower slopes the misty outlines of early spring had begun with the buddingtrees. Here and there the feathery forest was spotted by dashes of pinkcoolness where the wild peach and plum had blossomed, and the faint blue ofthe rhododendron bushes mounted to the sky-line. The morning was brilliantafter a rain and the fresh mountain air blew invigoratingly, as Isabelleleft the car on her husband's arm. With the quick change of mood of thenervous invalid she already felt stronger, more hopeful. There was color inher thin face, and her eyes had again the vivacious sparkle that had beenso largely her charm. 

"We must find some good horses, " she said to her father as they approachedthe hotel cottage which had been engaged; "I want to get up in those hills. Margaret promised to come for a week.... Oh, I am going to be all rightnow!"

The hotel was one of those huge structures dropped down in the mountains orby the sea to provide for the taste for fresh air, the need forrecuperation, of a wealthy society that crams its pleasures and itsbusiness into small periods, --days and hours. It rambled over an acre ortwo and provided as nearly as possible the same luxuries and occupationsthat its frequenters had at home. At this season it was crowded with richpeople, who had sought the balm of early spring in the Virginia mountainsafter their weeks of frantic activity in the cities, instead of taking thesteamers to Europe. They were sitting, beautifully wrapped in furs, on thelong verandas, or smartly costumed were setting out for the links or forhorseback excursions. The Colonel and Lane quickly discovered acquaintancesin the broker's office where prominent "operators" were sitting, smokingcigars and looking at the country through large plate-glass windows, whilethe ticker chattered within hearing. There was music in the hall, and fresharrivals with spotless luggage poured in from the trains. This mountain innwas a little piece of New York moved out into the country. 

But it was peaceful on the piazza of the cottage, which was somewhatremoved from the great caravansary, where Isabelle lay and watched the bluerecesses of the receding hills. Here her husband found her when it was timeto say good-by. 

"You'll be very well off, " he remarked, laying his hand affectionately onhis wife's arm. "The Stantons are here--you remember him at Torso?--and theBlakes from St. Louis, and no doubt a lot more people your fatherknows, --so you won't be lonely. I have arranged about the horses andselected a quiet table for you. "

"That is very good of you, --I don't want to see people, " she replied, hereyes still on the hills. "When will you be back?"

"In a week or ten days I can run up again and stay for a couple of days, over Sunday. "

"You'll telegraph about Marian?"

"Of course. "

And bending over to kiss her forehead, he hurried away. It seemed to herthat he was always leaving, always going somewhere. When he was away, hewrote or telegraphed her each day as a matter of course, and sent herflowers every other day, and brought her some piece of jewellery when hewent to New York. Yes, he was very fond of her, she felt, and his was aloyal nature, --she never need fear that in these many absences from hiswife he might become entangled with women, as other men did. He was notthat kind.... 

The Colonel crossed the lawn in the direction of the golf links with aparty of young old men. It was fortunate that the Colonel had becomeinterested, almost boyishly, in golf; for since that morning when his sonhad left him he had lost all zest for business. A year ago he would neverhave thought it possible to come away like this for a month in the busyseason. To Isabelle it was sad and also curious the way he took this matterof Vickers. He seemed to feel that he had but one child now, had put hisboy quite out of his mind. He was gradually arranging his affairs--alreadythere was talk of incorporating the hardware business and taking in newblood. And he had aged still more. But he was so tremendously vital, --theColonel! No one could say he was heart-broken. He took more interest thanever in public affairs, like the General Hospital, and the Park Board. Buthe was different, as Isabelle felt, --abstracted, more silent, apparentlyrevising his philosophy of life at an advanced age, and that is alwayspainful. If she had only given him a man child, something male and vitallike himself! He was fond of John, but no one could take the place of hisown blood. That, too, was a curious limitation in the eyes of the youngergeneration. 

"Isabelle!"

She was wakened from her brooding by a soft Southern voice, and perceivedMargaret Pole coming up the steps. With the grasp of Margaret's smallhands, the kiss, all the years since St. Mary's seemed to fall away. Thetwo women drew off and looked at each other, Margaret smilingenigmatically, understanding that Isabelle was trying to read the record ofthe years, the experience of marriage on her. Coloring slightly, she turnedaway and drew up a chair. 

"Is your husband with you?" Isabelle asked. "I do so want to meet him. "

"No; I left him at my father's with the children. He's very good with thechildren, " she added with a mocking smile, "and he doesn't like littletrips. He doesn't understand how I can get up at five in the morning andtravel all day across country to see an old friend.... Men don't understandthings, do you think?"

"So you are going abroad to live?"

"Yes, " Margaret answered without enthusiasm. "We are going to studymusic, --the voice. My husband doesn't like business!"

Isabelle had heard that Mr. Pole, agreeable as he was, had not beensuccessful in business. But the Poles and the Lawtons were all comfortablyoff, and it was natural that he should follow his tastes. 

"He has a very good voice, " Margaret added. 

"How exciting--to change your whole life like that!" Isabelle exclaimed, fired by the prospect of escape from routine, from the known. 

"Think so?" Margaret remarked in a dull voice. "Well, perhaps. Tell me howyou are--everything. "

And they began to talk, and yet carefully avoided what was uppermost in theminds of both, --'How has it been with you? How has marriage been? Has itgiven you all that you looked for? Are you happy?' For in spite of all theeducation, the freedom so much talked about for women, that remains thecentral theme of their existence, --the emotional and material satisfactionof their natures through marriage. Margaret Pole was accounted intellectualamong women, with bookish tastes, thoughtful, and she knew many women whohad been educated in colleges. "They are all like us, " she once said toIsabelle; "just like us. They want to marry a man who will give themeverything, and they aren't any wiser in their choice, either. The onlydifference is that a smaller number of them have the chance to marry, andwhen they can't be married, they have something besides cats and maidenaunts to fall back upon. But interests in common with their husbands, intellectual interests, --rubbish! A man who amounts to anything is always aspecialist, and he doesn't care for feminine amateurishness. Anacquaintance with Dante and the housing of the poor doesn't broaden thebreakfast table, not a little bit. "

When Margaret Pole talked in this strain, men thought her intelligent andwomen cynical. Isabelle felt that this cynicism had grown upon her. Itappeared in little things, as when she said: "I can stay only a week. Imust see to breaking up the house and a lot of business. We shall neversail if I don't go back and get at it. Men are supposed to be practical andattend to the details, but they don't if they can get out of them. " WhenIsabelle complimented her on her pretty figure, Margaret said with amocking grimace: "Yes, the figure is there yet. The face goes firstusually. " Isabelle had to admit that Margaret's delicate, girlish face hadgrown strangely old and grave. The smile about the thin lips was there, butit was a mocking or a wistful smile. The blue eyes were deeper underneaththe high brow. Life was writing its record on this fine face, --a record noteasily read, however. They fell to talking over the St. Mary's girls. 

"Aline, --have you seen much of her?" Margaret asked. 

"Not as much as I hoped to, --I have been so useless, " Isabelle replied. "She's grown queer!"

"Queer?"

"She is rather dowdy, and they live in such a funny way, --always in a mess. Of course they haven't much money, but they needn't be so--squalid, --thechildren and the mussy house and all. "

"Aline doesn't care for things, " Margaret observed. 

"But one must care enough to be clean! And she has gone in for fads, --shehas taken to spinning and weaving and designing jewellery and I don't knowwhat. "

"That is her escape, " Margaret explained. 

"Escape? It must be horrid for her husband and awful for the children. "

"What would you have her do? Scrub and wash and mend and keep a tidy house?That would take all the poetry out of Aline, destroy her personality. Isn'tit better for her husband and for the children that she should keep herselfalive and give them something better than a good housewife?"

"Keep herself alive by making weird cloths and impossible bracelets?"

Margaret laughed at Isabelle's philistine horror of the Goring household, and amused herself with suggesting more of the philosophy of theIntellectuals, the creed of Woman's Independence. She pointed out thatAline did not interfere with Goring's pursuit of his profession though itmight not interest her or benefit her. Why should Goring interfere withAline's endeavors to develop herself, to be something more than a motherand a nurse?

"She has kept something of her own soul, --that is it!"

"Her own soul!" mocked Isabelle. "If you were to take a meal with them, youwould wish there was less soul, and more clean table napkins. "

"My dear little _bourgeoise_, " Margaret commented with amusement, "you mustget a larger point of view. The housewife ideal is doomed. Women won'tsubmit to it, --intelligent ones. And Goring probably likes Aline better asshe is than he would any competent wife of the old sort. "

"I don't believe any sane man likes to see his children dirty, and neverknow where to find a clean towel, --don't tell me!"

"Then men must change their characters, " Margaret replied vaguely; "wewomen have been changing our characters for centuries to conform to men'sdesires. It's time that the men adjusted themselves to us. "

"I wonder what John would say if I told him he must change his character, "mused Isabelle. 

"There is Cornelia Woodyard, " Margaret continued; "she combines the twoideals--but she is very clever. "

"We never thought so at St. Mary's. "

"That's because we judged her by woman's standards, sentimentalones, --old-fashioned ones. But she is New. "

"How new?" asked Isabelle, who felt that she had been dwelling in a darkplace the past three years. 

"Why, she made up her mind just what she wanted out of life, --a certainkind of husband, a certain kind of married life, a certain set ofassociates, --and she's got just what she planned. She isn't an opportunistlike most of us, who take the husbands we marry because they are there, wedon't know why, and take the children they give us because they come, andlive and do what turns up in the circumstances chosen for us by the Male. No, Conny is very clever!"

"But how?"

"Eugene Woodyard is not a rich man, --Conny was not after money, --but he isa clever lawyer, well connected, --in with a lot of interesting people, andhas possibilities. Conny saw those and has developed them, --that has beenher success. You see she combines the old and the new. She makes the mouldof their life, but she works through him. As a result she has just what shewants, and her husband adores her, --he is the outward and visible symbol ofConny's inward and material strength!"

Isabelle laughed, and Margaret continued in her pleasant drawl, paintingthe Woodyard firmament. 

"She understood her man better than he did himself. She knew that he wouldnever be a great money-getter, hadn't the mental or the physicalqualifications for it. So she turns him deftly into a reformer, a kind ofgentlemanly politician. She'll make him Congressman or better, --muchbetter! Meantime she has given him a delightful home, one of the nicest Iknow, --on a street down town near a little park, where the herd does notknow enough to live. And there Conny receives the best picked set of peopleI ever see. It is all quite wonderful!"

"And we thought her coarse, " mused Isabelle. 

"Perhaps she is, --I don't think she is fine. But a strong hand is rarelyfine. I don't think she would hesitate to use any means to arrive, --andthat is Power, my dear little girl!"

Margaret Pole rose, the enigmatic smile on her lips. 

"I must leave you now to your nap and the peace of the hills, " she saidlightly. "We'll meet at luncheon. By the way, I ran across a cousin of minecoming in on the train, --a Virginian cousin, which means that he is closeenough to ask favors when he wants them. He wishes to meet you, --he is agreat favorite of the Woodyards, of Conny, I should say, --Tom Cairy.... Hewas at college with your brother, I think. I will bring him over in theafternoon if you say so. He's amusing, Thomas; but I don't vouch for him. Good-by, girl. "

Isabelle watched Margaret Pole cross the light green of the lawn, walkingleisurely, her head raised towards the mountains. 'She is not happy, 'thought Isabelle. 'There is something wrong in her marriage. I wonder if itis always so!' Margaret had given her so much to think about, with hersharp suggestions of strange, new views, that she felt extraordinarilyrefreshed. And Margaret, her eyes on the blue hills, was thinking, 'She isstill the girl, --she doesn't know herself yet, does not know life!' Herlips smiled wistfully, as though to add: 'But she is eager. She will haveto learn, as we all do. ' Thus the two young women, carefully avoiding anyreference to the thought nearest their hearts, discovered in a brief halfhour what each wanted to know.... 

After the noisy luncheon, with its interminable variety of food, in thecrowded, hot dining room, Isabelle and Margaret with Cairy sought refuge inone of the foot-paths that led up into the hills. Cairy dragged his leftleg with a perceptible limp. He was slight, blond hair with auburn tinge, smooth shaven, with appealing eyes that, like Margaret's, were recessedbeneath delicate brows. He had pleased Isabelle by talking to her aboutVickers, whom he had known slightly at the university, talking warmly andnaturally, as if nothing had happened to Vickers. Now he devoted himself toher quite personally, while Margaret walked on ahead. Cairy had a way ofseeing but one woman at a time, no matter what the circumstances might be, because his emotional horizon was always limited. That was one reason whyhe was liked so much by women. He had a good deal to say about theWoodyards, especially Conny. 

"She is so sure in her judgments, " he said. "I always show her everything Iwrite!" (He had already explained that he was a literary "jobber, " as hecalled it, at the Springs to see a well-known Wall Street man for anarticle on "the other side" that he was preparing for _The People'sMagazine_, and also hinted that his ambitions rose above his magazineefforts. )

"But I did not know that Conny was literary, " Isabelle remarked insurprise. 

The young Southerner smiled at her simplicity. 

"I don't know that she is what _you_ mean by literary; perhaps that is thereason she is such a good judge. She knows what people want to read, atleast what the editors think they want and will pay for. If Con--Mrs. Woodyard likes a thing, I know I shall get a check for it. If she throws itdown, I might as well save postage stamps. "

"A valuable friend, " Margaret called back lightly, "for a struggling man ofletters!"

"Rather, " Cairy agreed. "You see, " turning to Isabelle again, "that sort ofjudgment is worth reams of literary criticism. "

"It's practical. "

"Yes, that is just what she is, --the genius of the practical; it's aninstinct with her. That is why she can give really elaborate dinners in herlittle house, and you have the feeling that there are at least a dozenservants where they ought to be, and all that. "

From the Woodyards they digressed to New York and insensibly to Cairy'slife there. Before they had turned back for tea Isabelle knew that the lameyoung Southerner had written a play which he hoped to induce some actressto take, and that meantime he was supporting himself in the various waysthat modern genius has found as a substitute for Grub Street. He had alsotold her that New York was the only place one could live in, if one wasinterested in the arts, and that in his opinion the drama was the comingart of America, --"real American drama with blood in it"; and had saidsomething about the necessity of a knowledge of life, "a broadunderstanding of the national forces, " if a man were to write anythingworth while. 

"You mean dinner-parties?" Margaret asked at this point.... 

When he left the women, he had arranged to ride with Isabelle. 

"It's the only sport I can indulge in, " he said, referring to his physicalinfirmity, "and I don't get much of it in New York. "

As he limped away across the lawn, Margaret asked mischievously:--

"Well, what do you think of Cousin Thomas? He lets you know a good dealabout himself all at once. "

"He is so interesting--and appealing, don't you think so, with those eyes?Isn't it a pity he is lame?"

"I don't know about that. He's used that lameness of his very effectively. It's procured him no end of sympathy, and sympathy is what Thomaslikes, --from women. He will tell you all about it some time, --how his negronurse was frightened by a snake and dropped him on a stone step when he wasa baby. "

"We don't have men like him in St. Louis, " Isabelle reflected aloud; "menwho write or do things that are really interesting--it is all business orgossip. I should like to see Conny, --it must be exciting to live in NewYork, and be somebody!"

"Come and try it; you will, I suppose?"

In spite of Margaret's gibes at her distant cousin, Isabelle enjoyed Cairy. He was the kind of man she had rarely seen and never known: by birth agentleman, by education and ambition a writer, with a distinct social senseand the charm of an artist. In spite of his poverty he had found the meansto run about the world--the habited part of it--a good deal, and had alwaysmanaged to meet the right people, --the ones "whose names mean something. "He was of the parasite species, but of the higher types. To Isabelle hisrapid talk, about plays, people, pictures, the opera, books, was arevelation of some of that flowing, stream of life which she felt she wasmissing. And he gave her the pleasant illusion of "being worth while. " Theway he would look at her as he rolled a cigarette on the veranda steps, awaiting her least word, flattered her woman's sympathy. When he left forWashington, going, as he said, "where the _People's_ call me, " she missedhim distinctly. 

"I hope I shall meet him again!"

"You will, " Margaret replied. "Thomas is the kind one meets pretty often ifyou are his sort. And I take it you are!"

Isabelle believed that Margaret Pole was jealous of her young cousin orpiqued because of a sentimental encounter in their youth. Cairy had hintedat something of this kind. Margaret patted Isabella's pretty head. 

"My little girl, " she mocked, "how wonderful the world is, and all thecreatures in it!"

 * * * * *

From this month's visit at the Springs the Colonel got some good golf, Mrs. Price a vivid sense of the way people threw their money about these days("They say that Wall Street broker gave the head waiter a hundred dollarbill when he left!"). And Isabelle had absorbed a miscellaneous assortmentof ideas, the dominant one being that intelligent Americans who reallywished to have interesting lives went East to live, particularly to NewYork. And incidentally there was inserted in the nether layers of herconsciousness the belief that the world was changing its ideas about womenand marriage, "and all that. " She desired eagerly to be in the current ofthese new ideas. 

CHAPTER XX

"What makes a happy marriage?" Rob Falkner queried in his brutal andironical mood, which made his wife shiver for the proprieties of pleasantsociety. It was at one of Bessie's famous Torso suppers, when the Lanes andDarnells were present. 

"A good cook and a good provider, " Lane suggested pleasantly, to keep thetopic off conversational reefs. 

"A husband who thinks everything you do just right!" sighed Bessie. 

"Plenty of money and a few children--for appearances, " some one threw in. 

Isabelle remarked sagely, "A husband who knows what is best for you in thebig things, and a wife who does what is best in the small ones. "

"Unity of Purpose--Unity of Souls, " Tom Darnell announced in his oratoricalvoice, with an earnestness that made the party self-conscious. His wifesaid nothing, and Falkner summed up cynically:--

"You've won, Lane! The American husband must be a good provider, but itdoesn't follow that the wife must be a good cook. Say a good entertainer, and there you have a complete formula of matrimony: PROVIDER (Hustler, Money-getter, Liberal) and ENTERTAINER (A woman pretty, charming, social). "

"Here's to the Falkner household, --the perfect example!"

Thus the talk drifted off with a laugh into a discussion of masculinedeficiencies and feminine endurances. Isabelle, looking back with theexperience of after years, remembered this "puppy-dog" conversation. Howyoung they all were and how they played with ideas! Bessie, also, remembered the occasion, with an injured feeling. On the way home thatnight Lane had remarked to his wife:--

"Falkner is a queer chap, --he was too personal to-night. "

"I suppose it is hard on him; Bessie is rather wilful and extravagant. Helooked badly to-night. And he told me he had to take an early train toexamine some new work. "

Lane shrugged his shoulders, as does the man of imperturbable will, perfectdigestion, and constant equilibrium, for the troubles of a weaker vessel. 

"If he doesn't like what his wife does, he should have character enough tocontrol her. Besides he should have known all that before he married!"

Isabelle smiled at this piece of masculine complacency, --as if a man couldknow any essential fact about a woman from the way she did her hair to theway she spent money before he had lived with her!

"I do hope he will get a better place, " Isabelle remarked good-naturedly. "It would do them both so much good. "

As we have seen, Falkner's chance came at last through Lane, whorecommended him to the A. And P. Engineer in charge of the great terminalworks that the road had undertaken in St. Louis. The salary of the newposition was four thousand dollars a year, --a very considerable advanceover the Torso position, and the work gave Falkner an opportunity such ashe had never had before. The railroad system had other large projects incontemplation also. 

"Bessie has written me such a letter, --the child!" Isabelle told herhusband. "You would think they had inherited a million. And yet she seemssad to leave Torso, after all the ragging she gave the place. She has agood word to say even for Mrs. Fraser!"

Bessie Falkner was one of those who put down many small roots whereverchance places them. She had settled into Torso more solidly than she knewuntil she came to pull up her roots and put them down in a large, strangecity. "We won't know any one there, " she said dolefully to her Torsofriends. "The Lanes, of course; but they are such grand folk now--andIsabella has all her old friends about her. " Nevertheless, it scarcelyentered her mind to remain "in this prairie village all our days. " Bessiehad to the full the American ambition to move on and up as far aspossible.... 

Fortune, having turned its attention to the Falkners, seemed determined tosmile on them this year. An uncle of Bessie's died on his lonely ranch inWyoming, and when the infrequent local authorities got around to settlinghis affairs, they found that he had left his little estate to ElizabethBissell, who was now Mrs. Robert Falkner of Torso. The lonely old rancher, it seemed, had remembered the pretty, vivacious blond girl of eighteen, whohad taken the trouble to show him the sights of Denver the one time he hadvisited his sister ten years before. Bessie, amused at his eccentricappearance, had tried to give "Uncle Billy" a good time. "Uncle Billy, " shewould say, "you must do this, --you will remember it all your life. UncleBilly, won't you lunch with me down town to-day? You must go to thetheatre, while you are here. Uncle, I am going to make you a necktie!" Soshe had chirped from morning until night, flattering, coaxing, and alsomaking sport of the old man. "Bess has a good heart, " her mother said toUncle Bill, and it must be added Bessie also had a woman's instinct toplease a possible benefactor. Uncle Billy when he returned to the lonelyranch wrote a letter to his pretty niece, which Bessie neglected to answer. Nevertheless, when Uncle Billy made ready to die, he bestowed all that hehad to give upon the girl who had smiled on him once. 

Thus Bessie's purring good nature bore fruit, Before the property could besold, the most imaginative ideas about her inheritance filled Bessie'sdreams. Day and night she planned what they would do with thisfortune, --everything from a year in Europe to new dresses for the children!When it came finally in the form of a draft for thirteen thousand and someodd dollars, her visions were dampened for a time, --so many of her castlescould not be acquired for thirteen thousand and some odd dollars. 

Falkner was for investing the legacy in Freke's mines, which, he had goodreason to believe, were better than gold mines. But when Bessie learnedthat the annual dividends would only be about twelve hundred dollars, shedemurred. That was too slow. Secretly she thought that "if Rob were onlyclever about money, " he might in a few years make a real fortune out ofthis capital. There were men she had known in Denver, as she told herhusband, "who hadn't half of that and who had bought mines that had broughtthem hundreds of thousands of dollars. " To which remark, Rob had repliedcurtly that he was not in that sort of business and that there were manymore suckers than millionnaires in Denver--and elsewhere. 

So, finally, after paying some Torso debts, it came down to buying a housein St. Louis; for the flat that they had first rented was crowded andBessie found great difficulty in keeping a servant longer than a week. Robthought that it would be more prudent to rent a house for six to ninehundred than to buy outright or build, until they saw how his work for theA. And P. Developed. But Bessie wanted a home, --a house of her own. So theybegan the wearisome search for a house. Bessie already had her views aboutthe desirable section to live in, --outside the smoke in one of "thoseprivate estate parks, "--where the Lanes were thinking of settling. (A fewmonths had been sufficient for Bessie to orientate herself socially in hernew surroundings. ) "That's where all the nice young people are going, " sheannounced. In vain Rob pointed out that there were no houses to be boughtfor less than eighteen thousand in this fashionable neighborhood. "Younever dare!" she retorted reproachfully. "You have to take risks if youwant anything in this world! How many houses in St. Louis that aren'tmortgaged do you suppose there are?"

"But there is only about eleven thousand of Uncle Billy's money left, andthose houses in Buena Vista Park cost from eighteen to twenty-four thousanddollars. "

"And they have only one bath-room, " sighed Bessie. 

The summer went by in "looking, " and the more houses they looked at theless satisfied was Bessie. She had in the foreground of her mind an imageof the Lanes' Torso house, only "more artistic"; but Falkner convinced herthat such a house in St. Louis would cost thirty thousand dollars at thepresent cost of building materials. 

"It is so difficult, " she explained to Mrs. Price, "to find anything smalland your own, don't you know?" She arched her brows prettily over herdilemma. Mrs. Price, who, in spite of the fascination that Bessie exerted, had prim ideas "of what young persons in moderate circumstances" should do, suggested that the Johnstons were buying a very good house in the newsuburb of Bryn Mawr on the installment plan. 

"As if we could bury ourselves in that swamp, --we might as well stay inTorso!" Bessie said to her husband disgustedly. 

Falkner reflected that the train service to Bryn Mawr made it easier ofaccess to his work than the newer residential quarter inside the city whichBessie was considering. But that was the kind of remark he had learned notto make.... 

In the end it came to their building. For Bessie found nothing "small andpretty, and just her own, " with three bath-rooms, two maids' rooms, etc. , in any "possible" neighborhood. She had met at a dinner-party an attractiveyoung architect, who had recently come from the East to settle in St. Louis. Mr. Bowles prepared some water-color sketches which were so prettythat she decided to engage him. With misgivings Rob gave his consent. Anarrow strip of frontage was found next a large house in the desiredsection. They had to pay three thousand dollars for the strip of land. Mr. Bowles thought the house could be built for eight or ten thousand dollars, depending on the price of materials, which seemed to be going up withastonishing rapidity. 

Then Bessie plunged into plans. It was a gusty March day when the Falknerswent out with the architect to consider the lot, and spent an afternoontrying to decide how to secure the most sun. Falkner, weary of the wholematter, listened to the glib young architect. Another windy day in Aprilthey returned to the lot to look at the excavation. The contracts were notyet signed. Lumber had gone soaring, and there was a strike in the brickbusiness, the kind of brick they had chosen being unobtainable, whilehardware seemed unaccountably precious. Already it was impossible to buildthe house for less than twelve thousand, even after sacrificing Bessie'sprivate bath. Falkner had consented to the mortgage, --"only four thousand, "Bessie said; "we'll save our rent and pay it off in a year or two!"Bessie's periods of economy were always just dawning!

Falkner, looking at the contractor's tool shed, had a sense of depressingfatality. From the moment that the first spadeful of ground had been dug, it seemed to him that the foundation of his domestic peace had begun tocrumble. But this depression was only an attack of the grippe, he said tohimself, and he tried to take an interest in the architect's description ofhow they should terrace the front of the lot.... 

Of course, as the novelists tell us, the man of Strong Will, of MatureCharacter, of Determined Purpose, would not have allowed his wife toentangle him in this house business (or in matrimony, perhaps, in the firstinstance)! But if society were composed of men of S. W. , M. C. , and D. P. , there would be no real novels, --merely epics of Slaughter and Success, ofPassionate Love and Heroic Accomplishment.... At this period Falkner stillloved his wife, --wanted to give her every gratification within his power, and some just beyond, --though that love had been strained by five hardyears, when her efforts as an economic partner had not been intelligent. (Bessie would have scorned such an unromantic term as "economic partner. ")They still had their times of amiable understanding, of pleasantcomradeship, even of passionate endearment. But by the time the youngarchitect's creation at number 26 Buena Vista Pleasance had become theirresidence, that love was in a moribund condition.... Yet after all, asBessie sometimes reminded him, it was her money that was building thehouse, at least the larger part of it; and further it was all her life thatwas to be spent in it, presumably. The woman's home was her world. 

Thus, in the division that had come between them, the man began to considerhis wife's rights, what he owed to her as a woman that he had taken underhis protection, --a very dangerous state of mind in matrimony. If he haddiscovered that her conception of the desirable end of life was not his, hemust respect her individuality, and so far as possible provide for her thatwhich she seemed to need. The faithful husband, or dray-horseinterpretation of marriage, this. 

CHAPTER XXI

If it takes Strong Will, Mature Character, and Determined Purpose to liveeffectively, it takes all of that and more--humor and patience--to build ahouse in America, unless one can afford to order his habitation as he doesa suit of clothes and spend the season in Europe until the contractor andthe architect have fought it out between them. But Bessie was a young womanof visions. She had improved all her opportunities to acquire taste, --theyoung architect said she had "very intelligent ideas. " And he, BertramBowles, fresh from Paris, with haunting memories of chateaux and villas, and a knowledge of what the leading young architects of the East wereturning out, had visions too, in carrying out this first real commissionthat he had received in St. Louis. "Something _chic_, with his stamp onit, " he said.... 

The hours with the contractors to persuade them that they could dosomething they had never seen done before! The debates over wood finish, and lumber going up while you talked! The intricacies of heating, plumbing, electric lighting, and house telephones--when all men are discovered to beliars! Falkner thought it would be easier to lay out the entire terminalsystem of the A. And P. Than to build one "small house, pretty and justyour own, you know. " Occasionally even Bessie and the polite Bertram Bowlesfell out, when Falkner was called in to arbitrate. Before the question ofinterior decoration came up the house had already cost fourteen thousanddollars, which would necessitate a mortgage of six thousand dollars atonce. Here Falkner put his foot down, --no more; they would live in it withbare walls. Bessie pleaded and sulked, --"only another thousand. " And "notto be perfectly ridiculous, " Falkner was forced to concede anotherthousand. "Not much when you consider, " as the architect said to Bessie.... Time dragged on, and the house was not ready. The apartment hotel intowhich they had moved was expensive and bad for the children. In JuneFalkner insisted on moving into the unfinished house, with carpenters, painters, decorators still hanging on through the sultry summer months. 

"I met your poor little friend Mrs. Falkner at Sneeson's this morning, " NanLawton said to Isabelle. "She was looking over hangings and curtains forher house.... She is nothing but a bag of bones, she's so worn. Thathusband of hers must be a brute to let her wear herself all out. She wastelling me some long yarn about their troubles with the gas men, --veryamusing and bright. She is a charming little thing. "

"Yes, " Isabelle replied; "I am afraid the house has been too much for themboth. "

She had been Bessie's confidant in all her troubles, and sympathized--whocould not sympathize with Bessie?--though she thought her rather foolish toundertake so much. 

"We'll simply have to have rugs, I tell Rob, " Bessie said to her. "He is insuch bad humor these days, and says we must go on the bare floors or usethe old Torso carpets. Fancy!"

And Isabelle said, as she was expected to say, "Of course you will have tohave rugs. They are having a sale at Moritz's, --some beauties and cheap. "

Yet she had a sneaking sympathy for Falkner. Isabelle did not suspect thatshe herself was the chief undoing of the Falkner household, nor did any oneelse suspect it. It was Bessie's ideal of Isabelle that rode her hard fromthe beginning of her acquaintance with the Lanes. And it was Isabelle whovery naturally introduced them to most of the people they had come to knowin their new world. Isabelle herself had much of her mother's thrift andher father's sagacity in practical matters. She would never have done whatBessie was doing in Bessie's circumstances. But in her own circumstancesshe did unconsciously a great deal more, --and she disliked to fill her mindwith money matters, considering it vulgar and underbred to dwell long onthem. The rich and the very wise can indulge in these aristocraticrefinements! Isabelle, to be sure, felt flattered by Bessie's admiringdiscipleship, --who does not like to lead a friend? She never dreamed of herevil influence. The power of suggestion, subtle, far-reaching, ever workingon plastic human souls! Society evolves out of these petty reactions.... 

The rugs came. 

"We simply have to have rugs, --the house calls for it, " asserted Bessie, using one of Mr. Bertram Bowles's favorite expressions. 

"My purse doesn't, " growled Falkner. 

Nevertheless Bessie selected some pretty cheap rugs at Moritz's, whichcould be had on credit. In the great rug room of the department store shemet Alice Johnston, who was looking at a drugget. The two women exchangedexperiences as the perspiring clerks rolled and rerolled rugs. 

"Yes, we shall like Bryn Mawr, " Mrs. Johnston said, "now that the foliagecovers up the tin cans and real estate signs. The schools are really verygood, and there is plenty of room for the boys to make rough house in. Weare to have a garden another year.... Oh, yes, it is rural middleclass, --that's why I can get drugget for the halls. "

Bessie thought of her pretty house and shuddered. 

"We are planning to call and see the house--Isabelle says it'swonderful--but it will have to be on a Sunday--the distance--"

"Can't you come next Sunday for luncheon? I will ask Isabelle and herhusband, " Bessie interrupted hospitably, proud to show off her new toy. 

And on Sunday they all had a very good time and the new "toy" was muchadmired, although the paint was still sticky, --the painter had beenoptimistic when he took the contract and had tried to save himselflater, --the colors wrong, and the furniture, which had done well enough inTorso, looked decidedly shabby. 

"It's the prettiest house I know, " Isabelle said warmly, and Bessie feltrepaid. 

She was very tired, and to-day looked worn. The new toy was dragging herout. As the long St. Louis summer drew to an end, she was always tired. Some obscure woman's trouble, something in the delicate organism that hadnever been quite right, was becoming acutely wrong. She lived in fear ofhaving another child, --the last baby had died. By the new year she was incare of Isabelle's specialist, who advised an operation. When that wasover, it was nearly spring, and though she was still delicate, she wishedto give some dinners "to return their obligations. " Falkner objected formany reasons, and she thought him very hard. 

"It is always sickness and babies for me, " she pouted; "and when I want alittle fun, you think we can't afford it or something. "

Her hospitable heart was so bent on this project, it seemed so natural thatshe should desire to show off her toy, after her struggle for it, soinnocent "to have our friends about us, " that he yielded in part. A gooddeal might be told about that dinner, from an economic, a social, adomestic point of view. But we must lose it and hasten on. Imagine merely, what a charming woman like Bessie Falkner, whose scheme of the universe wasfounded on the giving of "pleasant little dinners, " would do, --a woman whowas making her life, building her wigwam, filling it with those she wishedto have as friends, and you will see it all. It was, of course, a greatsuccess. Mrs. Anstruthers Leason said of the hostess (reported by NanLawton through Isabelle), "Little Mrs. Falkner has the real social gift, --avery rare thing among our women!" And when an invitation came from Mrs. Anstruthers Leason to dinner and her box at the French opera, Bessie wassure that she had found her sphere. 

 * * * * *

Falkner seemed to Bessie these days to be growing harder, --he was"exacting, " "unsympathetic, " "tyrannical. " "He won't go places, and hewon't have people, --isn't nice to them, even in his own house, " Bessie saidsadly to Isabelle. "I suppose that marriage usually comes to that: the wifestands for bills and trouble, and the husband scolds. Most people squabble, don't they?"

"Of course he loves you, dear, " Isabelle consoled her. "American husbandsalways take their wives for granted, as Nannie says. A foreigner paysattentions to his wife after marriage that our husbands don't think arenecessary once they have us. Our husbands take us too much as a matter ofcourse, --and pay the bills!"

Bessie felt and said that Rob took life too hard, worried too much. Afterall, when a man married a woman and had children, he must expect a certainamount of trouble and anxiety. She wasn't sure but that wives were neededto keep men spurred to their highest pitch of working efficiency. She hadan obscure idea that the male was by nature lazy and self-indulgent, andrequired the steel prod of necessity to do his best work. As she lookedabout her among the struggling households, it seemed such was therule, --that if it weren't for the fact of wife and children and bills, themen would deteriorate.... Naturally there were differences, --"squabbles, "as she called them; but she would have been horrified if any one hadsuggested that these petty squabbles, the state of mind they produced orindicated, were infinitely more degrading, more deteriorating to them both, than adultery. It never entered her mind that either she or her husbandcould be unfaithful, that Falkner could ever care for any other woman thanher. "Why, we married for love!"

 * * * * *

Love! That divine unreason of the gods, which lures man as a universalsolvent of his sorrow, the great solution to the great enigma! Where wasit? Bessie asked when Rob passed her door in the morning on his way to hissolitary breakfast without a word of greeting or a kiss, and finally leftthe house without remembering to go upstairs again. And Falkner askedhimself much the same thing, when Bessie persisted in doing certain things"because everybody does, " or when he realized that after two years in hisnew position, with a five hundred dollars' increase in his salary thesecond year, he was nearly a thousand dollars in debt, and losing steadilyeach quarter. Something must be done--and by him!--for in marriage, heperceived with a certain bitterness, Man was the Forager, the Provider. Andin America if he didn't bring in enough from the day's hunt to satisfy thecharming squaw that he had made his consort, why, --he must trudge forthagain and get it! A poor hunter does not deserve the embellishment of aBessie and two pretty children. 

So he went forth to bring in more game, and he read no poetry these days. 

CHAPTER XXII

The calm male observer might marvel at Bessie's elation over the prospectof sitting in Mrs. Anstruthers Leason's box at the performance of "Faust"given by the French Opera Company on tour. But no candid woman will. Itcould be explained partly by the natural desire to associate withentertaining, well-dressed folk, who were generally considered to be "thebest, " "the leaders" of local society. Sitting there in the stuffy box, which was a poor place for seeing or hearing, Bessie felt the satisfactionof being in the right company. She had discovered in one of the serriedrows of the first balcony Kitty Sanders, whom she had known as a girl inKansas City, where Bessie had once lived in the peregrinations of theBissell family. Kitty had married a prosperous dentist and enjoyed with himan income nearly twice that of Rob Falkner. Kitty, scanning the boxesclosely, also spied Bessie, and exclaimed to her husband:--

"Why, there's Bessie Bissell in that box! You know she married a youngfellow, an engineer or something. " And she added either aloud or toherself, "They seem to be _in it_, --that's the Leason box. " While thealluring strains of the overture floated across the house, she mused at thestrange mutations of fortune, which had landed Bessie Bissell there andherself here beside the dentist, --with some envy, in spite of three belovedchildren at home and a motorcar.... 

To the dispassionate male observer this state of mind might be morecomprehensible if Bessie had appeared in Mrs. Corporation's box on a galanight at the Metropolitan, or in the Duchess of Thatshire's box at CoventGarden. But the strange fact of democracy is that instead of discouragingsocial desires it has multiplied them ten thousand fold. Every city in theland has its own Mrs. Anstruthers Leason or Mrs. Corporation, to form thelocal constellation, towards which the active-minded women of a certaintype will always strive or gravitate, as you choose to put it. This beingso, the American husband, one might suppose, would sigh for an absolutemonarchy, where there is but one fixed social firmament, admission to whichis determined by a despot's edict. Then the great middle class could restcontent, knowing that forever, no matter what their gifts might be, theirwives could not aspire to social heights. With us the field is clear, therace open to money and brains, and the result? Each one can answer forhimself. 

Isabelle, returning to her home that fall, with a slight surplus ofvitality, was eager for life. "I have been dead so long, " she said to herhusband. "I want to see people!" Born inside the local constellation, asshe had been, that was not difficult. Yet she realized soon enough that thePrices, prominent as they were, had never belonged to the heart of theconstellation. It remained for her to penetrate there, under the guidanceof the same Nannie Lawton whom as a girl she had rather despised. For everyconstellation has its inner circle, the members of which touchtelepathically all other inner circles. The fact that Nannie Lawton calledher by her first name would help her socially more, than the Colonel'srecord as a citizen or her husband's position in the railroad or theirample means. Before her second winter of married life had elapsed, she hadbegun to exhaust this form of excitement, to find herself always tired. After all, although the smudge of St. Louis on the level alluvial plains ofAmerica was a number of times larger than the smudge of Torso, the humanformula, at least in its ornamental form, remained much the same. She waspatroness where she should be patroness, she was invited where she wouldhave felt neglected not to be invited, she entertained very much as theothers she knew entertained, and she and her husband had more engagementsthan they could keep. She saw this existence stretching down the years withmonotonous iteration, and began to ask herself what else there was tosatisfy the thirst for experience which had never been assuaged. 

Bessie, with a keener social sense, kept her eye on the game, --she had to, and her little triumphs satisfied her. Nan Lawton varied the monotony of"the ordinary round" by emotional dissipations that Isabelle felt herselfto be above. Other women of their set got variety by running about thecountry to New York or Washington, to a hotel in Florida or in themountains of Carolina, or as a perpetual resource to Paris and Aix andTrouville and London.... 

Isabelle was too intelligent, too much the daughter of her father, tobelieve that a part of the world did not exist outside the socialconstellation, and an interesting part, too. Some of those outside shetouched as time went on. She was one of the board of governors for theSociety of Country Homes for Girls, and here and on the Orphanage board shemet energetic and well-bred young married women, who apparently genuinelypreferred their charities, their reading clubs, the little country placeswhere they spent the summers, to the glory of Mrs. Anstruthers Leason'sopera box or dinner dance. As she shot about the city on her errands, social and philanthropic, Isabelle sometimes mused on the lives of the"others, "--all those thousands that filled the streets and great buildingsof the city. Of course the poor, --that was simple enough; the struggle forlife settled how one would live with ruthless severity. If it was a dailyquestion how you could keep yourself housed and fed, why it did not matterwhat you did with your life. In the ranks above the poor, the little peoplewho lived in steam-heated apartments and in small suburban boxes had theirsmall fixed round of church and friends, still closely circumscribed and toIsabelle, in her present mood, --simply dreadful. When she expressed this toFosdick, whom she was taking one morning to a gallery to see the work of alocal artist that fashionable people were patronizing, he had scoffed ather:--

"_Madame la princesse_, " he said, waving his hand towards the throng ofmorning shoppers, "don't you suppose that the same capacity for humansensation exists in every unit of that crowd bent towards Sneeson's as inyou?"

"No, " protested Isabelle, promptly; "they haven't the same experience. "

"As thrilling a drama can be unrolled in a twenty-five dollar flat as in apalace. "

"Stuff! There isn't one of those women who wouldn't be keen to try thepalace!"

"As you ought to be to try the flat, in a normally constituted society. "

"What do you mean by a normally constituted society?"

"One where the goal of ease is not merely entertainment. "

"You are preaching now, aren't you?" demanded Isabelle. "Society has alwaysbeen pretty much the same, hasn't it? First necessities, then comforts, then luxuries, and then--"

"Well, what?"

"Oh, experience, art, culture, I suppose. "

"Isabelle, " the big man smilingly commented, "you are the same woman youwere six years ago. "

"I am not!" she protested, really irritated. "I have done a lot ofthinking, and I have seen a good deal of life. Besides I am a good wife, and a mother, which I wasn't six years ago, and a member of the CountryHomes Society and the Orphanage, and a lot more. " They laughed at herdefence, and Isabelle added as a concession: "I know that there are plentyof women not in society who lead interesting lives, are intelligent and allthat. But I am a good wife, and a good mother, and I am intelligent, andwhat is more, I see amusing people and more of them than the others, --thejust plain women. What would you have me do?"

"Live, " Fosdick replied enigmatically. 

"We all live. "

"Very few do. "

"You mean emotional--heart experiences, like Nan's affairs? ... Sometimes Iwonder if that wouldn't be--interesting. But it would give John such ashock! ... Well, here are the pictures. There's Mrs. Leason'sportrait, --flatters her, don't you think?"

Fosdick, leaning his fat hands on his heavy stick, slowly made the round ofthe canvasses, concluding with the portrait of Mrs. Leason. 

"Got some talent in him, " he pronounced; "a penny worth. If he can onlykeep away from this sort of thing, " pointing with his stick to theportrait, "he might paint in twenty years. "

"But why shouldn't he do portraits? They all have to, to live. "

"It isn't the portrait, --it's the sort of thing it brings with it. You methim, I suppose?"

"Yes; dined with him at Mrs. Leason's last week. "

"I thought so. That's the beginning of his end. "

"You silly! Art has always been parasitic, --why shouldn't the young man goto pleasant people's houses and have a good time and be agreeable and getthem to buy his pictures?"

"Isabelle, you have fallen into the bad habit of echoing phrases. 'Art hasalways been parasitic. ' That's the second commonplace of the drawing-roomyou have got off this morning. "

"Come over here and tell me something.... I can't quarrel with you, Dickie!" Isabelle said, leading the way to a secluded bench. 

"If I were not modest, I should say you were flirting with me. "

"I never flirt with any man; I am known as the Saint, the Puritan, --I mighttry it, but I couldn't--with you.... Tell me about Vick. Have you seenhim?"

"Yes, " Fosdick replied gravely. "I ran across him in Venice. "

"How was he?"

"He looked well, has grown rather stout.... The first time I saw him was onthe Grand Canal; met him in a smart gondola, with men all togged out, noend of a get-up!"

"You saw them _both_?"

"Of course, --I looked him up at once. They have an old place on theGiudecca, you know. I spent a week with them. He's still working on theopera, --it doesn't get on very fast, I gather. He played me some of themusic, --it's great, parts of it. And he has written other things. "

"I know all that, " Isabelle interrupted impatiently. "But is he happy?"

"A man like Vickers doesn't tell you that, you know. "

"But you can tell--how did they seem?"

"Well, " Fosdick replied slowly, "when I saw them in the gondola the firsttime, I thought--it was too bad!"

"I was afraid so, " Isabelle cried. "Why don't they marry and come to NewYork or go to London or some place and make a life?--people can't live likethat. "

"I think he wants to marry her, " Fosdick replied. 

"But she won't?"

"Precisely, --not now. "

"Why--what?"

Fosdick avoided the answer, and observed, "Vick seems awfully fond of thelittle girl, Delia. "

"Poor, poor Vick!" Isabelle sighed. "He ought to leave that creature. "

"He won't; Vick was the kind that the world sells cheap, --it's best kind. He lives the dream and believes his shadows; it was always so. It will beso until the end. Life will stab him at every corner. "

"Dear, dear Vick!" Isabelle said softly; "some days I feel as if I wouldhave done as he did. "

"But fortunately there is John to puncture your dream with solid fact. "

"John even might not be able to do it! ... I am going over to see Vick thissummer. "

"Wouldn't that make complications--family ones?"

Isabelle threw up her head wilfully. 

"Dickie, I think there is something in me deeper than my love for John orfor the child, --and that is the feeling I have about Vick!"

Fosdick looked at her penetratingly. 

"You ought not to have married, Isabelle. "

"Why? Every one marries--and John and I are very happy.... Come; there aresome people I don't want to meet. "

As they descended the steps into the murky light of the noisy city, Isabelle remarked:--

"Don't forget to-night, promptly at seven, --we are going to the theatreafterwards. I shall show you some of our smart people and let you see ifthey aren't more interesting than the mob. "

She nodded gayly and drove off. As she went to a luncheon engagement, shethought of Vickers, of Fosdick's remarks about living, and a great wave ofdissatisfaction swept over her. "It's this ugly city, " she said to herself, letting down the window. "Or it's nerves again, --I must do something!" Thatphrase was often on her lips these days. In her restlessness nothing seemedjust right, --she was ever trying to find something beyond the horizon. AsFosdick would have said, "The race vitality being exhausted in itsprimitive force, nothing has come to take its place. " But at luncheon shewas gay and talkative, the excitement of human contact stimulating her. Andafterwards she packed the afternoon with trivial engagements until it wastime to dress for her guests. 

The dinner and the theatre might have passed off uneventfully, if it hadnot been for Fosdick. That unwieldy social vessel broke early in thedinner. Isabelle had placed him next Mrs. Leason because the lady likedcelebrities, and Fosdick, having lately been put gently but firmly beyondthe confines of the Tzar's realm for undue intimacy with the rebelliousmajority of the Tzar's subjects, might be counted such. For the time beinghe had come to a momentary equilibrium in the city of his birth. Fosdickand Mrs. Leason seemed to find common ground, while the other men, theusual speechless contingent of tired business men, allowed themselves to betalked at by the women. Presently Fosdick's voice boomed forth:--

"Let me tell you a story which will illustrate my point, Mrs. Leason. Someyears ago I was riding through the Kentucky mountains, and after a wretchedluncheon in one of the log-and-mud huts I was sitting on the bench in frontof the cabin trying to make peace with my digestion. The ground in thatspot sloped down towards me, and on the side of this little hill there laya large hog, a razor-back sow. There were eight little pigs clustered invoracious attitudes about her, and she could supply but six at a time, --Imean that she was provided by nature with but six teats. "

Mrs. Leason visibly moved away from her neighbor, and for the rest of hisstory Fosdick had a silent dinner table. 

"The mother was asleep, " Fosdick continued, turning his great head closerto Mrs. Leason, "probably attending to her digestion as I was to mine, andshe left her offspring to fight it out among themselves for the possessionof her teats. There was a lively scrap, a lot of hollerin' and squealin'from that bunch of porkers, grunts from the ins and yaps from the outs, youknow. Every now and then one of the outs would make a flying start, get awedge in and take a nip, forcing some one of his brothers out of the heapso that he would roll down the hill into the path. Up he'd get and startover, and maybe he would dislodge some other porker. And the old sow keptgrunting and sleeping peacefully in the sun while her children got theirdinner in the usual free-fight fashion. 

"Now, " Fosdick raised his heavy, square-pointed finger and shook it at thehorrified Mrs. Leason and also across the table, noticing what seemed tohim serious interest in his allegory, "I observed that there was adifference among those little porkers, --some were fat and some were peaked, and the peaked fellers got little show at the mother. Now what I ask myselfis, --were they weak because they couldn't manage to get a square feed, orwere they hustled out more than the others because they were naturallyweak? I leave that to my friends the sociologists to determine--"

"Isabella, " Lane interposed from his end of the table, "if Mr. Fosdick hasfinished his pig story, perhaps--"

Isabelle, divided between a desire to laugh and a very vivid sense of Mrs. Leason's feelings, rose, but Fosdick had not finished and she sat downagain. 

"But what I meant to say was this, madam, --there's only one differencebetween that old sow and her brood and society as it is run at present, andthat is there are a thousand mouths to every teat, and a few big, fatfellows are getting all the food. "

He looked up triumphantly from his exposition. There was a titter at Mrs. Lawton's end of the table. This lady had been listening to an indecentstory told in French-English when Fosdick had upset things. Now sheremarked in an audible tone:--

"Disgusting, I say!"

"Eh! What's the matter? Don't you believe what I told you?" Fosdickdemanded. 

"Oh, yes, Dickie, --anything you say, --only don't repeat it!" Isabelleexclaimed, rising from the table. 

"Does he come from a farm?" one woman murmured indignantly. "Such _grosmots_!" She too had been listening to the story of adultery at Mrs. Lawton's end of the table. Isabelle, who had taken in the whole situationfrom her husband's shocked face, Nan Lawton's sly giggle over the salacioustidbit, and Mrs. Leason's offended countenance, felt that she must shriekto relieve her feelings. 

The party finally reached the theatre and saw a "sex" play, which caused afurious discussion among the women. "No woman would have done that. " "Theman was not worth the sacrifice, " etc. And Fosdick gloomily remarked inIsabelle's ears: "Rot like this is all you see on the modern stage. Andit's because women want it, --they must forever be fooling with sex. Whydon't they--"

"Hush, Dickie! you have exploded enough to-night. Don't say that to Mrs. Leason!"

Her world appeared to her that night a harlequin tangle, and, above all, meaningless--yes, dispiritedly without sense. John, somehow, seemeddispleased with her, as if she were responsible for Dickie's breaks. Shelaughed again as she thought of the sow story, and the way the women tookit. "What a silly world, --talk and flutter and gadding, all about nothing!"

CHAPTER XXIII

Isabelle did not see much of the Falkners as time went on. Little lines ofsocial divergence began to separate them more and more widely. "After all, one sees chiefly the people who do the same things one does, " Isabelleexplained to herself. Bessie thought Isabelle "uncertain, " perhapssnobbish, and felt hurt; though she remarked to Rob merely, "The Lanes arevery successful, of course. "

Affairs in the Buena Vista Pleasance house had progressed meantime. Therewere, naturally, so many meals to be got and eaten, so many littleillnesses of the children, and other roughnesses of the road of life. Therewas also Bessie's developing social talent, and above all there was theinfinitely complex action and reaction of the man and the wife upon eachother. Seen as an all-seeing eye might observe, with all the emotionalshading, the perspective of each act, the most commonplace householdcreated by man and woman would be a wonderful cosmography. But thenovelist, even he who has the courage to write a dull book, can touch buthere and there, on the little promontories of daily life, where it seems tohim the spiritual lava boils up near the surface and betrays mostpoignantly the nature of the fire beneath.... 

It was a little over three years since the Falkners had moved into theBuena Vista Pleasance house. Husband and wife sat in the front room aftertheir silent dinner alone, with the September breeze playing through thewindows, which after a hot day had been thrown open. There was the debrisof a children's party in the room and the hall, --dolls and toys, half-nibbled cakes and saucers of ice-cream. Bessie, who was very neatabout herself, was quite Southern in her disregard for order. She was alsoan adorable hostess for children, because she gave them loose rein. 

"What is it you wish to say?" she asked her husband in a cold, defensivetone that had grown almost habitual. 

Though pale she was looking very pretty in a new dress that she had worn ata woman's luncheon, where she had spent the first part of the afternoon. She had been much admired at the luncheon, had taken the lead in the talkabout a new novel which was making a ten days' sensation. Her mind wasstill occupied partly with what she had said about the book. Thesediscussions with Rob on household matters, at increasingly frequentperiods, always froze her. "He makes me show my worst side, " she said toherself. At the children's tea, moreover, an attack of indigestion haddeveloped. Bessie was fond of rich food, and in her nervous condition, which was almost chronic, it did not agree with her, and made herirritable. 

"I have been going over our affairs, " Falkner began in measured tones. Thatwas the usual formula! Bessie thought he understood women very badly. Shewondered if he ever did anything else those evenings he spent at homeexcept "go over their affairs. " She wished he would devote himself to somemore profitable occupation. 

"Well?"

Falkner looked tired and listless. The summer was always his hardest time, and this summer the road had been pushing its terminal work with actualferocity. He wore glasses now, and was perceptibly bald. He was alsoslouchy about dress; Bessie could rarely induce him to put on eveningclothes when they dined alone. 

"Well?" she asked again. It was not polite of him to sit staring there asif his mind were a thousand miles away. A husband should show some goodmanners to a woman, even if she was his wife!

Their chairs were not far apart, but the tones of their voices indicated animmeasurable gulf that had been deepening for years. Falkner cleared hisvoice. 

"As I have told you so often, Bessie, we are running behind all the time. It has got to a point where it must stop. "

"What do you suggest?"

"You say that three servants are necessary?"

"You can see for yourself that they are busy all the time. There's work forfour persons in this house, and there ought to be a governess beside. Idon't at all like the influence of that school on Mildred--"

"Ought!" he exclaimed. 

"If people live in a certain kind of house, in a certain neighborhood, theymust live up to it, --that is all. If you wish to live as the Johnstonslive, why that is another matter altogether. "

Her logic was imperturbable. There was an unexpressed axiom: "If you want adowd for your wife who can't dress or talk and whom nobody cares toknow, --why you should have married some one else. " Bessie awaited his replyin unassailable attractiveness. 

"Very well, " Falkner said slowly. "That being so, I have made up my mindwhat to do. "

Mildred entered the room at this moment, looking for a book. She was eight, and one swift glance at her parents' faces was enough to show her quickintelligence that they were "discussing. "

"What is it, Mildred?" Bessie asked in the cooing voice she always had forchildren. 

"I want my _Jungle Book_, " the little girl replied, taking a book from thetable. 

"Run along, girlie, " Bessie said; and Mildred, having decided that it wasnot an opportune moment to make affectionate good-nights, went upstairs. 

"Well, what is it?" Bessie demanded in the other tone. 

"I have a purchaser for the house, at fair terms. "

"Please remember that it is _my_ house. "

"Wait! Whatever remains after paying off the mortgage and our debts, notmore than six thousand dollars, I suppose, will be placed to your credit inthe trust company. "

"Why should I pay all our debts?"

Her husband looked at her, and she continued hastily:--

"What do you mean to do then? We can't live on the street. "

"We can hire a smaller house somewhere else, or live in a flat. "

Bessie waved her hand in despair; they had been over this so many times andshe had proved so conclusively the impossibility of their squeezing into aflat. Men never stay convinced!

"Or board. "

"Never!" she said firmly. 

"You will have to choose. "

This was the leading topic of their discussion, and enough has been said toreveal the lines along which it developed. There was much of a discursivenature, naturally, introduced by Bessie, who sought thereby to fog theissue and effect a compromise. She had found that was a good way to dealwith a husband. But to-night Falkner kept steadily at his object. 

"No, no, no!" he iterated in weary cadence. "It's no use to keep onexpecting; five thousand is all they will pay me, and it is all I am reallyworth to them. And after this terminal work is finished, they may havenothing to offer me.... We must make a clean sweep to start afresh, right, on the proper basis. " After a moment, he added by way of appeal, "And Ithink that will be the best for us, also. "

"You expect me to do all the work?"

"Expect!" Falkner leaned his head wearily against the chair-back. Wordsseemed useless at this point. Bessie continued rather pitilessly:--

"Don't you want a home? Don't you want your children brought up decentlywith friends about them?"

"God knows I want a home!" the husband murmured. 

"I think I have made a very good one, --other people think so. "

"That's the trouble--too good for me!"

"I should think it would be an incentive for a man--"

"God!" Falkner thundered; "that you should say that!"

It had been in her heart a long time, but she had never dared to express itbefore, --the feeling that other men, no abler than Rob, contrived to givetheir wives, no more seductive than she, so much more than she had had. 

"Other men find the means--"

She was thinking of John Lane, of Purrington, --a lively young broker oftheir acquaintance, --of Dr. Larned, --all men whose earning power had leapedahead of Falkner's. Bessie resented the economic dependence of marriedwomen on their husbands. She believed in the foreign _dot_ system. "Mydaughters shall never marry as I did, " she would say frankly to herfriends. "There can be no perfectly happy marriage unless the woman isindependent of her husband in money matters to a certain extent. " ... Forshe felt that she had a right to her ideals, so long as they were not bad, vicious; a right to her own life as distinct from her husband's life, orthe family life. "The old idea of the woman's complete subordination hasgone, " she would say. "It is better for the men, too, that women are nolonger mere possessions without wills of their own. " It was such ideas asthis that earned for Bessie among her acquaintances the reputation of being"intelligent" and "modern. "

And Falkner, a vision of the mountains and the lonely cabin before hiseyes, remarked with ironic calm:--

"And why should I earn more than I do, assuming that I could sell myself ata higher figure?"

For the man, too, had his dumb idea, --the feeling that something preciousinside him was being murdered by this pressing struggle to earn more, always more. As man he did not accept the simple theory that men werebetter off the harder they were pushed, that the male brute needed the spurof necessity to function, that all the man was good for was to be thecompetent forager. No! Within him there was a protest to the whole spiritof his times, --to the fierce competitive struggle. Something inside himproclaimed that he was not a mere maker of dollars, that life was more thanfood and lodging, even for those he loved most. 

"What do I get out of it?" he added bitterly. "Perhaps I have done toomuch. "

"Oh, if that is the way you feel, --if you don't love me!" Bessie exclaimedwith wounded pride. "Probably you are tired of me. When a man is sick ofhis wife, he finds his family a burden, naturally. "

And there they paused at the brink of domestic vulgarity. 

Falkner saw the girl on the veranda of the mountain hotel, with her goldenhair, her fresh complexion, her allurement. Bessie, most men would think, was even more desirable this minute than then as an unformed girl. Thearched eyebrows, so clearly marked, the full lips, the dimpled neck, allspake:--

"Come kiss me, and stop talking like that!"

For a moment the old lure seized the man, the call of the woman who hadonce been sweet to him. Then his blood turned cold within him. That was thelast shame of marriage, --that a wife should throw this lure into thereasoning, a husband to console himself--that way! Falkner rose to hisfeet. 

"I shall make arrangements to sell the house. "

"Very well; then I shall take the children and go to my mother in Denver. "

"As you please. "

Without looking again at his wife, he left the room. 

Bessie had played blindly her last card, the wife's last card, and lost!There was bitterness and rebellion in her heart. She had loved herhusband, --hadn't she shown it by marrying him instead of the mine owner?She had been a good woman, not because she hadn't had her chances of othermen's admiration, as she sometimes let her husband know. Dickie Lawton hadmade love to her outrageously, and the last time the old Senator had beenin St. Louis, --well, he would never come again to her house. Not a shadowof disloyalty had ever crossed her heart. 

Bessie thought that a good wife must be chaste, of course; other matters ofwifely duty were less distinct. 

No! her husband did not care for her any more, --that was the real cause oftheir troubles. It was hard to wake up to such a fact after nine years ofmarriage with a man whom you loved!

There was a tragedy between, but not the one that Bessie suspected, nor themere tragedy of extravagance. Each realized dimly that the other hinderedrather than promoted that something within which each held tenaciously asmost precious. Instead of giving mutually, they stole mutually, and the endof that sort of life must be concubinage or the divorce court--or aspiritual readjustment beyond the horizon of either Falkner or his wife. 

 * * * * *

"Did you know that the Falkners were going to give up their house?" Laneasked his wife. 

"No, indeed. I saw Bessie at the symphony the other day, and she spoke ofgoing out to Denver to visit her mother; but she didn't say anything aboutthe house. Are you sure?"

"Yes; Falkner told Bainbridge he was selling it. And he wanted Bainbridgeto see if there was an opening for him on the road in the East. I am afraidthings haven't gone well with them. "

"After all the trouble they had building, and such a pretty house! What ashame!"

Lane was in his outing clothes, about to go to the country club for anafternoon of golf with the Colonel. He looked very strong and handsome inhis Scotch tweeds. Lately he had begun to take more exercise than he hadfound time for the first years of his marriage, had developed a taste forsport, and often found a day or two to fish or hunt when friends turned upfrom the East. Isabelle encouraged this taste, though she saw all the lessof her husband; she had a feeling that it was good for him to relax, madehim more of the gentleman, less of the hard-working clerk. The motor was atthe door, but he dawdled. 

"It is a pity about the Falkners, --I am afraid they are not getting on welltogether. He's a, peculiar fellow. Bainbridge tells me his work is onlypretty good, --doesn't put his back into it the way a man must who means toget up in his profession these days. There is a lot doing in his line, too. It will be a shame if trouble comes to Bessie. "

"The old difficulty, I suppose, " Isabelle remarked; "not enough money--samestory everywhere!"

It was the same story everywhere, even in these piping times of prosperity, with fortunes doubling, salaries going up, and the country pouring out itswealth. So few of her friends, even the wealthy ones, seemed to have enoughmoney for their necessities or desires. If they had four servants, theyneeded six; if they had one motor, they must have two; and the new idea ofcountry houses had simply doubled or trebled domestic budgets. It wasn'tmerely in the homes of ambitious middle-class folk that the cry wentup, --"We must have more!" Isabelle herself had begun to feel that theColonel might very well have given her a package of stocks and bonds at herwedding. Even with her skilful management, and John's excellent salary, there was so much they could not do that seemed highly desirable to do. "Everything costs so these days!" And to live meant to spend, --to live!

CHAPTER XXIV

Isabelle did not go to Vickers as she firmly intended to that summer. Laneoffered a stubborn if silent opposition to the idea of her joining herbrother, --"so long as that woman is with him. " He could not understandIsabelle's passionate longing for her brother, nor the fact that hisloyalty to his mistake endeared Vickers all the more to her. She divinedthe ashes in her brother's heart, the waste in which he dwelt, and the factthat he "had made a complete mess of life" did not subtract from her love. After all, did the others, their respectable acquaintance, often make muchof living?

It was not John's opposition, however, that prevented the journey, but thealarming weakness of the Colonel. In spite of his activity and his exercisethe old man had been growing perceptibly weaker, and his digestive troublehad developed until the doctors hinted at cancer. To leave the Colonel nowand go to the son he had put out of his life would be mere brutality. Vickers might come back, but Mrs. Price felt that this would cause theColonel more pain than pleasure. 

During the spring Isabelle made many expeditions about the city in companywith her father, who gave as an excuse for penetrating all sorts of newneighborhoods that he wished to look at his real estate, which was widelyscattered. But this was merely an excuse, as Isabelle easily perceived;what he really cared about was to see the city itself, the building, theevidences of growth, of thriving. 

"When your mother and I came to live in the city, " he would say, laying alarge white hand on his daughter's knee, "it was all swamp out thisway, --we used to bring Ezra with us in the early spring and pickpussy-willows. Now look at it!" And what Isabelle saw, when she looked inthe direction that the old man waved his hand, was a row of ugly brickapartment houses or little suburban cottages, or brick stores andtenements. There was nothing in the scene, for her, to inspire enthusiasm, and yet the Colonel would smile and gaze fondly out of those kindly blueeyes at the acres of human hive. It was not pride in his shrewd foresightin investing his money, so much as a generous sympathy for the growth ofthe city, the forthputting of a strong organism. 

"I bought this tract in eighty-two, " he said, pointing to a stretch offactories and grain elevators. "Had to borrow part of the money to do it. Parrott thought I was a fool, but I knew the time would come when it wouldbe sold by the foot, --folks are born and must work and live, " he mused. Hemade the man drive the car slowly through the rutty street while he lookedkeenly at the hands pouring from the mills, the elevators, the railroadyards. "Too many of those Polaks, " he commented, "but they are better thanniggers. It is a great country!"

In the old man's pride there was more than selfish satisfaction, more thanflamboyant patriotism over his "big" country; there was an almost patheticbelief in the goodness of life, merely as life. These breeding millions, inthis teeming country, were working out their destiny, --on the whole abetter destiny than the world had yet seen. And the old man, who had livedhis life and fought vitally, felt deep in the inner recesses of his beingthat all was good; the more chance for the human organism to be born andwork out its day, the better. In the eyes of the woman of the newergeneration this was a singular-pantheism, --incomprehensible. Unless onewere born under favorable conditions, what good was there in the struggle?Mere life was not interesting. 

They went, too, to see the site of the coming Exposition. The great treeswere being cut down and uprooted to give space for the vast buildings. TheColonel lamented the loss of the trees. "Your mother and I used to come outhere Sundays in summer, " he said regretfully. "It was a great way from townthen--there was only a steam road--and those oaks were grateful, after theheat. I used to lie on the ground and your mother would read to me. She hada very sweet voice, Isabelle!"

But he believed in the Exposition, even if the old trees must be sacrificedfor it. He had contributed largely to the fund, and had been made adirector, though the days of his leadership were over. "It is good forpeople to see how strong they are, " he said. "These fairs are our Olympicgames!"

 * * * * *

At first he did not wish to leave the city, which was part of his bone andflesh; but as the summer drew on and he was unable to endure the motor histhoughts turned back to his Connecticut hills, to the old farm and thewoods and the fields. Something deeper than all was calling to him toreturn to the land that was first in his blood. So they carried him--now abony simulacrum of his vigorous self--to the old house at Grafton. For afew weeks he lay wrapped in rugs on the veranda, his eyes on Dog Mountain. At first he liked to talk with the farm-hands, who slouched past theveranda. But more and more his spirit withdrew even from this peacefulscene of his activity, and at last he died, as one who has no more concernabout life.... 

To Isabelle, who had been with him constantly these last fading months, there was much that remained for a long time inexplicable in her father'sattitude towards life. He seemed to regret nothing, not even the death ofhis elder son, nor his estrangement from Vickers, and he had little of theold man's pessimism. There were certain modern manifestations that she knewhe disliked; but he seemed to have a fine tolerance even for them, as beingof no special concern to him. He had lived his life, such as it was, without swerving, without doubts or hesitations, which beset the youngergeneration, and now that it was over he had neither regret nor desire tograsp more. 

When the Colonel's will was opened, it caused surprise not only in hisfamily, but in the city where he had lived. It was long talked about. Inthe first place his estate was much larger than even those nearest him hadsupposed; it mounted upwards from eight millions. The will apparently hadbeen most carefully considered, largely rewritten after the departure ofVickers. His son was not mentioned in the document. Nor were there thelarge bequests, at least outright, to charities that had been expected ofso public spirited a man. The will was a document in the trust field. Tosum it all up, it seemed as if the old man had little faith in theimmediate generation, even in his daughter and her successful husband. Forhe left Isabelle only the farm at Grafton and a few hundred thousanddollars. To be sure, after his wife's death the bulk of the estate would beheld in trust for her child, or children, should her marriage prove morefruitful in the future. Failing heirs, he willed that the bulk of theestate should go to certain specified charities, --an Old Man's Home, TheHome for Crippled Children, etc. And it was arranged that the businessshould be continued under the direction of the trustees. The name ofParrott and Price should still stand for another generation!

"A singular will!" Lane, who was one of the trustees, said to his wife. 

Isabelle was more hurt than she cared to have known. She had alwayssupposed that some day she would be a rich woman in her own right. But itwas the silent comment, the mark of disapproval, that she read in the linesof the will which hurt. The Colonel had never criticised, never chided her;but she had felt at times that he did not like the kind of life she hadelected to lead latterly. 

"He thought we were extravagant, probably, " she replied to her husband. 

"I can't see why, --we never went to him for help!"

She knew that was not exactly the reason, --extravagance. The old man didnot like the modern spirit--at least the spirit of so many of herfriends--of spending for themselves. The Colonel did not trust the presentgeneration; he preferred that his money should wait until possibly thepassing of the years had brought wisdom. 

"A selfish will!" the public said. 

PART THREE

CHAPTER XXV

Fosdick had called Cornelia Woodyard the "Vampire, "--why, none of heradmirers could say. She did not look the part this afternoon, standingbefore the fire in her library, negligently holding a cup of tea in onehand, while she nibbled gourmandizingly at a frosted cake. She had come infrom an expedition with Cairy, and had not removed her hat and gloves, merely letting her furs slip off to the floor. While she had her tea, Cairywas looking through the diamond panes of a bank of windows at a strip ofsmall park, which was dripping in the fog of a dubious December day. Conny, having finished her tea, examined lazily some notes, pushed them back intotheir envelopes with a disgusted curl of her long lips, and glancing overher shoulder at Cairy drawled in an exhausted voice:--

"Poke the fire, please, Tommy!"

Cairy did as he was told, then lighted a cigarette and stood expectantly. Conny seemed lost in a maze of dreary thoughts, and the man looked aboutthe room for amusement. It was a pleasant little room, with sufficientcolor of flowers and personal disorderliness of letters and books andpapers to soften the severity of the Empire furniture. Evidently thearchitect who had done over this small down-town house had beensupplemented by the strong hand of its mistress. Outside and inside he haddone his best to create something French out of the old-fashioned New Yorkblock house, but Cornelia Woodyard had Americanized his creation enough tomake it intimate, livable. 

"Can't you say something, Tommy?" Conny murmured in her childish treble. 

"I have said a good deal first and last, haven't I?"

"Don't be cross, Tommy! I am down on my job to-day. "

"Suppose you quit it! Shall we go to the Bahamas? Or Paris? Or Rio?"

"Do you think that you could manage the excursion, Tommy?" Although shesmiled good-naturedly, the remark seemed to cut. The young man slumped intoa chair and leaned his head on his hands. 

"Besides, where would Percy come in?"

Cairy asked half humorously, "And where, may I ask, do I come in?"

"Oh, Tommy, don't look like that!" Conny complained. "You _do_ come in, youknow!"

Cairy brought his chair and placed himself near the fire; then leanedforward, looking intently into the woman's eyes. 

"I think sometimes the women must be right about you, you know. "

"What do they say?"

... "That you are a calculating machine, --one of those things they have inbanks to do arithmetic stunts!"

"No, you don't, ... Silly! Tell me what Gossom said about the place. "

"He didn't say much about that; he talked about G. Lafayette Gossom and_The People's Magazine_ chiefly.... The mess of pottage is three hundred amonth. I am to be understudy to the great fount of ideas. When he has aninspiration he will push a bell, and I am to run and catch it as it flowsred hot from his lips and put it into shape, --if I can. "

Cairy nursed his injured leg with a disgusted air. 

"Don't sniff, Tommy, --there are lots of men who would like to be in yourshoes. "

"I know.... Oh, I am not ungrateful for my daily bread. I kiss the handthat found it, --the hand of power!"

"Silly! Don't be literary with me. Perhaps I put the idea into old NoddyGossom's head when he was here the other night. You'll have to humor him, listen to his pomposity. But he has made a success of that _People'sMagazine_. It is an influence, and it pays!"

"Four hundred thousand a year, chiefly automobile and corset ads, I shouldsay. "

"Nearly half a million a year!" Conny cried with the air of 'See what Ihave done for you!'

"Yes!" the Southerner remarked with scornful emphasis ... "I shall harnessmyself once more to the car of triumphant prosperity, and stretch forth myhungry hands to catch the grains that dribble in the rear. Compromise!Compromise! All is Compromise!"

"Now you are literary again, " Conny pronounced severely. "Your play wasn'ta success, --there was no compromise about that! The managers don't wantyour new play. Gossom does want your little articles. You have to live, andyou take the best you can get, --pretty good, too. "

"Madam Materialist!"

Conny made a little face, and continued in the same lecturing tone. 

"Had you rather go back to that cross-roads in the Virginiamountains--something Court-house--or go to London and write slop home tothe papers, as Ted Stevens does?"

"You know why I don't go back to the something Courthouse and live oncorn-bread and bacon!" Cairy sat down once more very near the blond womanand leaned forward slowly. Conny's mouth relaxed, and her eyes softened. 

"You are dear, " she said with a little laugh; "but you are silly aboutthings. " As the young man leaned still farther forward, his hand touchingher arm, Conny's large brown eyes opened speculatively on him.... 

The other night he had kissed her for the first time, that is, reallykissed her in unequivocal fashion, and she had been debating since whethershe should mention the matter to Percy. The right moment for such aconfidence had not yet come. She must tell him some day. She prided herselfthat her relation with her husband had always been honest and frank, andthis seemed the kind of thing he ought to know about, if she were going tokeep that relation what it had been. She had had tenderintimacies--"emotional friendships, " her phrase was--before this affairwith Cairy. They had always been perfectly open: she had lunched and dinedthem, so to speak, in public as well as at the domestic table. Percy hadrather liked her special friends, had been nice to them always. 

But looking into the Southerner's eyes, she felt that there was somethingdifferent in this case; it had troubled her from the time he kissed her, ittroubled her now--what she could read in his eyes. He would not be contentwith that "emotional friendship" she had given the others. Perhaps, andthis was the strangest thrill in her consciousness, she might not becontent to have him satisfied so easily.... Little Wrexton Grant had senther flowers and written notes--and kissed her strong fingers, once. BertieSollowell had dedicated one of his books to her (the author's copy wassomewhere in Percy's study), and hinted that his life missed the guidinghand that she could have afforded him. He had since found a guiding handthat seemed satisfactory. Dear old Royal Salters had squired her, boughther silver in Europe, and Jevons had painted her portrait the year heopened his studio in New York, and kissed a very beautiful whiteshoulder, --purely by way of compliment to the shoulder. All these marks ofgallantry had been duly reported to Percy, and laughed at together byhusband and wife in that morning hour when Conny had her coffee in bed. Nevertheless, they had touched her vanity, as evidences that she was stillattractive as a woman. No woman--few women at any rate--of thirty-oneresents the fact that some man other than her husband can feel tenderlytowards her. And "these friends"--the special ones--had all been respectersof the law; not one would have thought of coveting his neighbor's wife, anymore than of looting his safe. 

But with Tom Cairy it was different. Not merely because he was Southern andhence presumably ardent in temperament, nor because of his reputation forbeing "successful" with women; not wholly because he appealed to her onaccount of his physical disability, --that unfortunate slip by the negronurse. But because there was in this man the strain of feminineunderstanding, of vibrating sentiment--the lyric chord oftemperament--which made him lover first and last! That is why he hadstirred most women he had known well, --women in whom the emotional life hadbeen dormant, or unappeased, or petrified. 

"You are such a dear!" Conny murmured, looking at him with her full softeyes, realizing in her own way that in this fragile body there was the soulof the lover, --born to love, to burn in some fashion before some altar, always. 

The special aroma that Cairy brought to his love-making was this sense thatfor the time it was all there was in life, that it shut out past andfuture. The special woman enveloped by his sentiment did not hear the stepsof other women echoing through outer rooms. She was, for the moment, firstand last. He was able to create this emotional delusion genuinely; for intoeach new love he poured himself, like a fiery liquor, that swept the heartclean. 

"Dearest, " he had murmured that night to Conny, "you are wonderful, --womanand man, --the soul of a woman, the mind of a man! To love you is to lovelife. "

And Conny, in whose ears the style of lover's sighs was immaterial, wasstirred with an unaccountable feeling. When Cairy put his hand on hers, andhis lips quivered beneath his mustache, her face inevitably softened andher eyes widened like a child's eyes. For Conny, even Conny, with herrobust intelligence and strong will to grasp that out of life which seemedgood to her, wanted to love--in a way she had never loved before. Like manywomen she had passed thirty with a husband of her choice, two children, andan establishment entirely of her making before she became aware that shehad missed something on the way, --a something that other women had. She hadseen Severine Wilson go white when a certain man entered the room--thenlight brilliantly with joy when his eyes sought her.... That must be worthhaving, too! ... 

Her relations with her husband were perfect, --she had said so for years andevery one said the same thing about the Woodyards. They were very intimatefriends, close comrades. She knew that Percy respected and admired her morethan any woman in the world, and paid her the last flattery of conceding toher will, respecting her intelligence. But there was something that he hadnot done, could not do, and that was a something that Cairy seemed able todo, --give her a sensation partly physical, wholly emotional, like theeffect of stimulant, touching every nerve. Conny, with her sure grasp ofherself, however, had no mind to submit blindly to this intoxication; shewould examine it, like other matters, --was testing it now in her capaciousintelligence, as the man bent his eyes upon her, so close to her lips. 

Had she only been the "other sort, " the conventional ordinary sort, shewould have either gulped her sensation blindly, --"let herself go, "--ortrembled with horror and run away as from some evil thing. Being as shewas, modern, intellectual, proudly questioning all maxims, she kept thisnew phenomenon in her hand, saying, "What does it mean for _me_?" The noteof the Intellectuals!

CHAPTER XXVI

There was the soft sound of a footstep on the padded stairs, and PercyWoodyard glanced into the room. 

"Hello, Tom!" he said briskly, and crossed to Conny, whose smooth brow hetouched softly with the tips of his fingers. "How goes it, Tom?"

"You are home early, " Conny complained in her treble drawl. 

"Must go to Albany to-night, " Percy explained, a weary note in his voice. "Not dining out to-night, Tom?"

It was a little joke they had, that when Cairy was not with them he was"dining out. "... 

When Cairy had left, Conny rose from her lounging position as if to resumethe burden of life. 

"It's the Commission?" she inquired. 

"Yes! I sent you the governor's letter. "

For a time they discussed the political situation in the new Commission, towhich Woodyard had recently been appointed, his first conspicuous publicposition. Then his wife observed wearily: "I was at Potts's this morningand saw Isabelle Lane there. She was in mourning. "

"Her father died, --you know we saw it in the papers. "

"She must be awfully rich. "

"He left considerable property, --I don't know to whom. "

"Well, they are in New York. Her husband has been made something or otherin the railroad, so they are going to live here. "

"He is a very able man, I am told. "

After a time Conny drawled: "I suppose we must have 'em here todinner, --they are at a hotel up town. Whom shall we have?"

Evidently after due consideration Conny had concluded that the Lanes mustcome under her cognizance. She ran over half a dozen names from her bestdinner list, and added, "And Tom. "

"Why Tom this time?" Percy demanded. 

"He's met Isabelle--and we always have Tommy! You aren't jealous, are you, Percy?" She glanced at him in amusement. 

"I must dress, " Percy observed negligently, setting down his cup of tea. 

"Come here and tell me you are not jealous, " Conny commanded. As herhusband smiled and brushed her fair hair with his lips, she muttered, "Yousilly!" just as she had to Cairy's unreasonableness. Why! She was Percy'sdestiny and he knew it.... She had a contempt for people who ruffledthemselves over petty emotions. This sex matter had been exaggerated byPoets and Prudes, and their hysterical utterances should not inhibit herimpulses. 

Nevertheless she did not consider it a suitable opportunity to tell Percyabout the kiss. 

 * * * * *

Percy Woodyard and Cornelia Pallanton had married on a new, radical basis. They had first met in the house of an intellectual woman, the wife of auniversity professor, where clever young persons were drawn in and taughtto read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Ibsen and George Moore, and to engagegracefully in perilous topics. They had been rather conscious that theywere radicals, --"did their own thinking, " as they phrased it, these youngpersons. They were not willing to accept the current morality, not eventhat part of it engraved in law; but so far as regarded all of moralitythat lay outside the domain of sex their actions were not in conflict withsociety, though they were Idealists, and in most cases Sentimentalists. Butin the matter of sex relation, which is the knot of the tangle for youth, they believed in the "development of the individual. " It must be determinedby him, or her, whether this development could be obtained best throughregular or irregular relations. The end of all this individual development?"The fullest activity, the largest experience, the most completepresentation of personality, " etc. Or as Fosdick railed, "Suck all and spitout what you don't like!"

So when these two young souls had felt sufficiently moved, one to theother, to contemplate marriage, they had had an "understanding": they wouldgo through with the customary formula and oaths of marriage, to pleasetheir relatives and a foolish world; but neither was to be "bound" by anysuch piece of silly archaism as the marriage contract. Both recognized thatboth had diversified natures, which might require in either case morevaried experience than the other could give. In their enlightened affectionfor each other, neither would stand in the light of the other's bestgood.... There are many such young people, in whom intellectual pride haserased deeper human instincts. But as middle life draws on, theyconform--or seek refuge in the divorce court. 

Neither Percy nor Cornelia had any intention of practising adultery as ahabit: they merely wished to be honest with themselves, and felt superiorto the herd in recognizing the errant or variant possibilities inthemselves. Conny took pleasure in throwing temptation in Percy's way, inencouraging him to know other women, --secretly gratified that he provedhopelessly domestic. And on her side we have seen the innocent lengths towhich she had hitherto gone. 

For it proved as life began in earnest for these two that much of theirclear philosophy crumbled. Instead of the vision of feminine Idealism thatthe young lawyer had worshipped, Conny developed a neat, practical nature, immensely capable of "making things go. " As her husband was the mostobvious channel through which things could move, her husband became herchief care. She had no theory of exploiting him, --she had no theories atall. She saw him as so much capacity to be utilized. Just as she never wasentrapped into a useless acquaintance, never had a "wrong person" at herhouse, never wasted her energies on the mere ebullition of good feeling, soshe never allowed Percy to waste his energies on fruitless works. Everything must count. Their life was a pattern of simple and pronounceddesign, from the situation of their house to the footing on which it wasestablished and the people who were encouraged to attach themselves there. 

Woodyard had been interested in social good works, and as a young man hadserved the Legal Aid Society. A merely worldly woman would have discouragedthis mild weakness for philanthropy. But Conny knew her material; out ofsuch as Percy, corporation lawyers--those gross feeders at the publictrough--were not made. Woodyard was a man of fine fibre, ratherunaggressive. He must either be steered into a shady pool of legalsinecure, or take the more dangerous course through the rapids of publiclife. It was the moment of Reform. Conny realized the capabilities ofReform, and Percy's especial fitness for it; Reform, if not remunerative, was fashionable and prominent. 

So Conny had steered their little bark, hoisting sail to every favorablewind, no matter how slight the puff, until Woodyard now was a minor figurein the political world. When his name occurred in the newspapers, a goodmany people knew who he was, and his remarks at dinners and his occasionalspeeches were quoted from, if there was not more valuable matter. He hadbeen spoken of for Congress. (Conny, of course, would never permit him toengulf himself in that hopeless sea. ) Just what Conny designed as theultimate end, she herself did not know; like all great generals, she was anopportunist and took what seemed to her worth taking from the fortunes ofthe day. The last good thing which had floated up on her shore was thisCommissionership. She had fished that up with the aid of the amiableSenator, who had spoken a word here and a word there in behalf of youngWoodyard. 

Conny was very well pleased with herself as a wife, and she knew that herhusband was pleased with her. Moreover, she had not the slightest intentionof permitting anything to interfere with her wifely duties as she sawthem.... 

Percy had gone upstairs to that roof story where in New York children arehoused, to see his boy and girl. He was very fond of his children. When hecame down, his thoughtful face was worried. 

"The kids seem always to have colds, " he remarked. 

"I know it, " Conny admitted. "I must take them to Dr. Snow to-morrow. "(They had their own doctor, and also their own throat specialist. )

"I wonder if it is good for them here, so far down in the city, --they haveonly that scrap of park to play in. "

Conny, who had been over this question a good many times, answeredirrefutably, --

"There seem to be a good many children growing up all right in the sameconditions. "

She knew that Percy would like some excuse to escape into the country. Conny had no liking for suburban life, and with her husband's career at thecritical point the real country was out of the question. 

"I suppose Jack will have to go to boarding school another year, " Percysaid with a sigh. 

He was not a strong man himself, though of solid build and barely thirty. He had that bloodless whiteness of skin so often found among young Americanmen, which contrasted with his dark mustache, and after a long day's worklike this his step dragged. He wore glasses over his blue eyes, and when heremoved them the dark circles could be seen. Conny knew the limits of hisstrength and looked carefully to his physical exercise. 

"You didn't get your squash this afternoon?"

When Percy was worried about anything, she immediately searched for aphysical cause. 

"No! I had to finish up things at the office so that I could get awayto-night. "

Then husband and wife went to their dinner, and Woodyard gave Conny ashort-hand account of his doings, the people he had seen, what they hadsaid, the events at the office. Conny required this account each day, either in the morning or in the evening. And Woodyard yielded quiteunconsciously to his wife's strong will, to her singularly definite idea of"what is best. " He admired her deeply, was grateful to her for thatcomplete mastery of the detail of life which she had shown, aware that ifit were not for the dominating personality of this woman he had somehow hadthe good fortune to marry, life would have been a smaller matter for him. 

"Con, " he said when they had gone back to the library for their coffee, "Iam afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business. "

"Why?" she demanded alertly. 

"There are some dreadful grafters on it, --I suspect that the chairman is awolf. I suspect further that it has been arranged to whitewash certain rankdeals. "

"But why should the governor have appointed you?"

"Possibly to hold the whitewash brush. "

"You think that the Senator knows that?"

"You can't tell where the Senator's tracks lead. "

"Well, don't worry! Keep your eyes open. You can always resign, you know. "

Woodyard went off to his train after kissing his wife affectionately. Connycalled out as he was getting into his coat:--

"Will you be back Sunday? Shall I have the Lanes then?"

"Yes, --and you will go to the Hillyers to-morrow?"

"I think so, --Tom will take me. "

After the door closed Conny went to her desk and wrote the note toIsabelle. Then after meditating a few moments, more notes of invitation. She had decided on her combination, --Gossom, the Silvers, the Hillyers (toget them off her mind), Senator Thomas, and Cairy. She did not take Percy'sobjection to Tom seriously. 

She had decided to present a variety of people to the Lanes. Isabelle andshe had never been intimate, and Conny had a woman's desire to show anaccomplished superiority to the rich friend, who had been inclined to snubher in boarding school. Conny was eminently skilful in "combinations. "Every one that composed her circle or even entered it might some day be ofuse in creating what is called "publicity. " That, as Cornelia Woodyardfelt, was the note of the day. "You must be talked about by the rightpeople, if you want to be heard, if you want your show!" she had said toCairy. Thanks to Lane's rapid rise in the railroad corporation, Isabellehad come legitimately within the zone of interest. 

After she had settled this matter to her satisfaction, she turned to somehouse accounts and made various calculations. It was a wonder to every onewho knew them how the Woodyards "could do so much on what they had. " As amatter of fact, with the rising scale of living, it required all Conny'spractical adroitness to make the household come out nearly even. Thanks toa great-aunt who admired Percy, they had been able to buy this house andalter it over, and with good business judgment it had been done so that theproperty was now worth nearly a third more than when they took it. But asecond man-servant had been added, and Conny felt that she must have amotor; she pushed away the papers and glanced up, thinking, planning. 

The Senator and she had talked investments the last time they had met. Shehad a little money of her own. If the old fox would only take it and rollit up into a big snowball! Isabelle, now, with all that wealth! Connypursed her lips in disgust to think that so much of the ammunition of warhad fallen into such incompetent hands. "Yes, " she said to herself, "theSenator must show me how to do it. " Perhaps it flitted vaguely through hermind that Percy might object to using stock market tips from the Senator. But Percy must accept her judgment on this matter. They could not go on anylonger with only twenty thousand a year. 

Turning out the lights, she went to her bedroom. It was very plain andbare, with none of the little toilette elegances or chamber comforts thatwomen usually love. Conny never spent except where it showed saliently. Herevening gowns were sometimes almost splendid, but her dressing gowns weredowdy, and poor little Bessie Falkner spent twice as much on lingerie. 

Having discharged the duties of her day, her mind returned to Cairy, to hiswork for Gossom, to his appealing self, and her lips relaxed in a gentlesmile. Hers was a simple nature, the cue once caught. She had come ofrather plain people, who knew the worth of a dollar, and had spent theirlives saving or investing money. The energy of the proletariat had beenhanded to her undiminished. The blood was evident in the large bones, thesolid figure, and tenacious fingers, as well as in the shrewdness withwhich she had created this household. It was her instinct to push out intothe troubled waters of the material world. She never weakened herself byquestioning values. She knew--what she wanted. 

Nevertheless, as she reached up her hand to turn out the night light, shewas smiling with dreamy eyes, and her thoughts were no longer practical!

CHAPTER XXVII

When Isabelle emerged from the great hotel and turned down the avenue towalk to the office of Dr. Potts, as he required her to do every day, shehad a momentary thrill of exultation. Descending the gentle incline, shecould see a good part of the city extending into a distant blue horizonbefore her. The vast buildings rose like islands in the morning mist. Itreminded her, this general panorama, of the awe-compelling spaces of theArizona canon into which she had once descended. Here were the sameirregular, beetling cliffs, the same isolated crags, with sharply outlinedlower and minor levels of building. The delicate blue, the many grays ofstorm and mist gave it color, also. But in place of the canon's eternalquiet, --the solitude of the remote gods, --this city boiled and hummed. That, too, --the realization of multitudinous humanity, --made Isabelle'spulses leap. 

In spite of her poor health, she had the satisfaction of at last beinghere, in the big hive, where she had wished to be so long. She was a partof it, a painfully insignificant mite as yet, but still a part of it. Hitherto New York had been a sort of varied hotel, an entertainment. Now itwas to be her scene, and she had begun already to take possession. It hadall come about very naturally, shortly after her father's death. While shewas dreading the return to St. Louis, which must be emptier than everwithout the Colonel, and she and her mother were discussing the possibilityof Europe, John's new position had come. A Western road had made him anoffer; for he had a splendid record as a "traffic getter. " The Atlantic andPacific could not lose him; they gave him the third vice-presidency withheadquarters in New York and general charge of traffic. Thus the Lanes'horizon shifted, and it was decided that the first year in the city theyshould spend in a hotel with Mrs. Price. Isabelle's health was againmiserable; there had been the delayed operation; and now she was in thecare of the famous Potts, trying to recover from the operation, from theold fatigue and the recent strains, "to be made fit. "

The move to New York had not meant much to Lane. He had spent a great dealof his time there these last years, as well as in Washington, Pittsburg, --in this city and that, --as business called him. His was what isusually regarded as a cosmopolitan view of life, --it might better be calleda hotel-view. Home still meant to him the city where his wife and childwere temporarily housed, but he was equally familiar with half a dozencities. Isabelle, too, had the same rootless feeling. She had spent but ashort time in any one place since she had left her father's house to go toSt. Mary's. That is the privilege or the curse of the prosperous American. Life thus becomes a shifting panorama of surfaces. Even in the same citythere are a dozen spots where the family ark has rested, which for the sakeof a better term may be called "homes. " That sense of rooted attachmentwhich comes from long habituation to one set of physical images ispractically a lost emotion to Americans.... 

There were days when New York roared too loudly for Isabelle's nerves, whenthe jammed streets, the buzzing shops, the overflowing hotels and theatres, made her long for quiet. Then she thought of the Farm as the most stablememory of a fixed condition, and she had an unformed plan of "doing over"the old place, which was now her own, and making it the centre of thefamily's centrifugal energy. Meantime there was the great Potts, whopromised her health, and the flashing charm of the city. 

Occasionally she felt lonely in this packed procession, this hotelexistence, with its multitude of strange faces, and longed for somethingfamiliar, even Torso! At such times when she saw the face of an oldacquaintance, perhaps in a cab at a standstill in the press of the avenue, her heart warmed. Even a fleeting glimpse of something known was a relief. Clearly she must settle herself into this whirlpool, put out her tentacles, and grasp an anchorage. But where? What?

One morning as she and her mother were making slow progress down theavenue, she caught sight of Margaret Pole on the sidewalk, waiting to crossthe stream, a little boy's hand in hers. Isabelle waved to her frantically, and then leaped from the cab, dodged between the pushing motors, andgrasped Margaret. 

"You here!" she gasped. 

"We came back some months ago, " Margaret explained. 

She was thin, Isabelle thought, and her face seemed much older than theyears warranted. Margaret, raising her voice above the roar, explained thatthey were living out of town, "in the country, in Westchester, " andpromised to come to lunch the next time she was in the city. Then with anod and a smile she slipped into the stream again as if anxious to be lost, and Isabelle rejoined her mother. 

"She looks as if she were saving her clothes, " Mrs. Price announced withher precise view of what she observed. Isabelle, while she waited for thedoctor, mused on the momentary vision of her old friend at the streetcorner. Margaret turned up in the noise and mist of the city, as everybodymight turn up; but Margaret old, worn, and almost shabby! Then the nursecame for her and she went into the doctor's room, with a depressingsensation compounded of a bad night, the city roar, the vision of Margaret. 

"Well, my lady, what's the story to-day?"

Dr. Potts looked up from his desk, and scrutinized the new patient out ofhis shaggy eyebrows. Isabelle began at once the neurasthenic's involved andparticularized tale of woe, breaking at the end with almost a sob:--

"I am so useless! I am never going to be well, --what is the matter withme?"

"So it's a bad world this morning, eh?" the doctor quizzed in an indulgentvoice. "We'll try to make it better, --shake up the combination. " He brokeoff suddenly and remarked in an ordinary, conversational voice: "Yourfriend Mrs. Woodyard was in here this morning, --a clever woman! My, but sheis clever!"

"What is the matter with her?"

"Same thing, --Americanitis; but she'll pull out if she will give herselfhalf a chance. "

Then he returned to Isabelle, wrote her a prescription, talked to her forten minutes, and when she left the office she felt better, was sure itwould "all come out right. "

The great Dr. Potts! He served as God to several hundred neurasthenicwomen. Born in a back street of a small town, he had emerged into thefashionable light after prodigious labor and exercise of will. Physicallyhe stood six feet, with a heavy head covered with thick black hair, anddeep-set black eyes. He had been well educated professionally, but histraining, his medical attainments, had little to do with his success. Hehad the power to look through the small souls of his women patients, and hefound generally Fear, and sometimes Hypocrisy, --a desire to evade, to getpleasure and escape the bill. These he bullied. Others he found struggling, feeble of purpose, desiring light, willingly confessing their weakness, andbegging for strength. These he despised; he gave them drugs and flatteredthem. There were some, like Conny, who were perfectly poised, with a plainphilosophy of selfishness. These he understood, being of fellow clay, andplotted with them how to entrap what they desired. 

Power! That was Potts's keynote, --power, effectiveness, accomplishment, atany and all cost. He was the spirit of the city, nay of the country itself!"Results--get results at all costs, " that was the one lesson of life whichhe had learned from the back street, where luckier men had shoulderedhim.... "I must supply backbone, " he would say to his patients. "I am yourtemporary dynamo!"

To Isabelle this mass of energy, Dr. Alexander Potts, seemed like theincarnate will to live of the great city. After her visit at his office shecame out into the sharp air, the shrill discords of the busy streets, attuned--with purpose, --"I am going to be well now! I am going to do this. Life will arrange itself, and at last I shall be able to live as otherslive. " This borrowed purpose might last the day out, and she would plungeinto a dozen matters; or it might wear off in an hour or two. Then back shewent the next day to be keyed up once more. 

"Do something! Deliver the goods, no matter what goods or how you get theminto the premises!" Potts thundered, beating the desk in the energy of hislecture. "Live! That's what we must all do. Never mind _how_ youlive, --don't waste good tissue worrying over that. _Live!_"

Dr. Potts was an education to Isabelle. His moods of brutality and ofsympathy came like the shifting shadows of a gusty day. His perfectlymaterial philosophy frightened her and allured her. He wasMephistopheles, --one hand on the medicine chest of life, the other pointingsatirically towards the towered city. 

"See, my child, " he purred; "I will tinker this little toy of your body foryou; then run along down there and play with your brothers and sisters. "

In the mood of reaction that the neurasthenic must meet, the trough of thewave, Isabelle doubted. Potts had not yet found the key to her mechanism;the old listless cloud befogged her still. After a sleepless night shewould sit by her window, high up in the mountain of stone, and look outover the city, its voice dull at this hour of dawn, --a dozing monster. Something like terror filled her at these times, fear of herself, of theslumbering monster, so soon to wake and roar. "Act, do!" thundered Potts;"don't think! Live and get what you want.... " Was that all? The peacefulpastures at Grafton, the still September afternoon when the Colonel died, the old man himself, --there was something in them beyond mere energy, quiteoutside the Potts philosophy. 

Once she ventured to suggest this doubt to Cornelia Woodyard, who, beingtemporarily in need of a bracer, had resorted to "old Pot. " She had plannedto go to the opera that night and wanted to "be herself. "

"I wonder if he's right about it all, " said Isabelle; "if we are justmachines, with a need to be oiled now and then, --to take this drug or that?Is it all as simple as he makes out? All just autointoxication, chemistry, and delusion?"

"You're ill, --that's why you doubt, " Conny replied with tranquilpositiveness. "When you've got the poison out of your system, you'll see, or rather you won't see crooked, --won't have ideas. "

"It's all a formula?"

Conny nodded, shutting her large mouth firmly. 

"And he has the key. You are merely an organ, and he pulls out this stop orthat; gives you one thing to take and then another. You tell him this dottyidea you've got in your head and he'll pull the right stop to shake itout. "

"I wonder! Some days I feel that I must go away by myself, get out of allthe noise, and live up among the mountains far off--"

She stopped. For Conny was not one to whom to confide a longing for thestars and the winds in the pines and the scent of the earth. Such vaporingwould be merely another symptom!

"What would you go mooning off by yourself for? You'd be crazy, for a fact. Better come down to Palm Beach with me next month. "

The great Potts had the unfortunate habit of gossiping about his patientswith one another. He had said to Conny: "Your friend Isabelle interests me. I should say that she had a case of festering conscience. " He crossed hislegs and gazed wisely up at the ceiling. "A rudimentary organ left overfrom her hard-working ancestors. She is inhibited, tied, thinks she can'tdo this and that. What she needs"--Potts had found the answer to his riddleand brought his eyes from the ceiling--"is a lover! Can't you find herone?"

"Women usually prefer to select _that_ for themselves. "

"Oh, no, --one is as good as another. What she needs is a counter-irritant. That husband of hers, what is he like?"

"Just husband, very successful, good-natured, gives her what she wants, --Ishould say they pull well together. "

"That's it! He's one of the smooth, get-everything-the-dear-woman-wantskind, eh? And then busies himself about his old railroad? Well, it is theworst sort for her. She needs a man who will beat her. "

"Is that what the lover would do?"

"Bless you, no! He would make her stop thinking she had an ache. " WhenConny went, the doctor came to the door with her and as he held her handcried breezily: "Remember what I said about your friend. Look up some niceyoung man, who will hang around and make her think she's got a soul. " Hepressed Conny's hand and smiled. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

When the Lanes went to Sunday luncheon at the Woodyards', the impression onIsabelle was exactly what Conny wished it to be. The little house had adistinct "atmosphere, " Conny herself had an "atmosphere, " and the people, who seemed much at home there and very gay, were what is termed"interesting. " That is, each person had his ticket of "distinction, " asIsabelle quickly found out. One was a lawyer whose name often appeared inthe newspapers as counsel for powerful interests; another was a womannovelist, whose last book was then running serially in a magazine andcausing discussion; a third--a small man with a boyish open face--Isabellediscovered with a thrill of delight was the Ned Silver whose clever littlearticles on the current drama she had read in a fashionable weekly paper. 

Isabelle found her hostess leaning against the mantelpiece with the air ofhaving just come in and discovered her guests. 

"How are you, dearie?" she drawled in greeting. "This is Mr. Thomas RandallCairy, Margaret's cousin, --do you remember? He says he has met you before, but Thomas usually believes he has met ladies whom he wants to know!" ThenConny turned away, and thereafter paid little attention to the Lanes, asthough she wished them to understand that the luncheon was not given forthem. 

"In this case, " Cairy remarked, "Mrs. Woodyard's gibe happens to miss. Ihaven't forgotten the Virginian hills, and I hope you haven't. "

It was Cairy who explained the people to Isabelle:--

"There is Gossom, the little moth-eaten, fat man at the door. He is themouthpiece of the _People's_, but he doesn't dislike to feast with theclasses. He is probably telling Woodyard at this moment what the Presidentsaid to him last week about Princhard's articles on the distillery trust!"

Among the Colonel's friends the magazine reporter Princhard had beenconsidered an ignorant and malicious liar. Isabelle looked eagerly as Cairypointed him out, --a short, bespectacled man with a thin beard, who wastalking to Silver. 

"There is the only representative of the fashionable world present, Mrs. George Bertram, just coming in the door. We do not go in for the purelyfashionable--yet, " he remarked mockingly. "Mrs. Bertram is interested inmusic, --she has a history, too. "... 

By the time the company were ready to lunch, Isabelle's pulse had risenwith excitement. She had known, hitherto, but two methods of assimilatingfriends and acquaintances, --pure friendship, a good-natured acceptance ofthose likable or endurable people fate threw in one's way; andfashion, --the desire to know people who were generally supposed to be thepeople best worth knowing. But here she perceived quickly there was a thirdprinciple of selection--"interest. " And as she glanced about theappointments of Conny's smart little house, her admiration for her oldschoolmate rose. Conny evidently had a definite purpose in life, and hadthe power and intelligence to pursue it. To the purposeless person, such asIsabelle had been, the evidences of this power were almost mysterious. 

At first the talk at the table went quite over Isabelle's head. Itconsisted of light gibe and allusion to persons and things she had neverheard of, --a new actress whom the serious Percy was supposed to be in lovewith, Princhard's adventure with a political notability, a new very"American" play. Isabelle glanced apprehensively at her husband, who was atConny's end of the table. Lane was listening appreciatively, now and thenexchanging a remark with the lawyer across the table. John Lane had thatsolid acquaintance with life which made him at home in almost allcircumstances. If he felt as she did, hopelessly countrified, he wouldnever betray it. Presently the conversation got to politics, the President, the situation at Albany. Conny, with her negligent manner and her childishtreble voice, gave the talk a poke here and there and steered it skilfully, never allowing it to get into serious pools or become mere noise. In one ofthe shifts Cairy asked Isabelle, "Have you seen Margaret since her return?"

"Yes; tell me why they came back!"

Cairy raised his eyebrows. "Too much husband, I should say, --shouldn'tyou?"

"I don't know him. Margaret seemed older, not strong, --what is the matterwith us all!"

"You'll understand what is the matter with Margaret when you see Larry! Andthen she has three children, --an indecent excess, with her health and thathusband. "... 

The company broke up after the prolonged luncheon almost at once, toIsabelle's regret; for she wished to see more of these people. As theystrolled upstairs to the library Cairy followed her and said:--

"Are you going to Mrs. Bertram's with us? She has some music and peopleSundays--I'll tell Mrs. Woodyard, " and before she could reply he hadslipped over to Conny. That lady glanced at Isabelle, smiled on Cairy, andnodded. What she said to Cairy was: "So you've got a new interest. Takecare, Tommy, --you'll complicate your life!" But apparently she did notregard Isabelle seriously; for presently she was saying to her, "Mrs. Bertram wants me to bring you around with us this afternoon, --you'll likeit. "

Lane begged off and walked back to the hotel in company with the lawyer. After a time which was filled with the flutter of amiable little speeches, appointments, and good-bys, Isabelle found herself in company with theSilvers and Gossom, Cornelia and Cairy on her way to Mrs. Bertram's, whichwas "just around the corner, "--that is, half a dozen blocks farther up townon Madison Avenue. Mrs. Silver was a pretty, girlish woman with a troubledface, who seemed to be making great efforts to be gay. She and Corneliacalled each other by first names, and when Isabelle asked about her later, Conny replied with a preoccupied drawl:--

"Yes, Annie Silver is a nice little thing, --an awful drag on him, you know. They haven't a dollar, and she is going to have a baby; she is in fitsabout it. "

As a matter of fact Silver managed to earn by his swiftly flowing pen overfour thousand dollars a year, without any more application than the averageclerk. 

"But in New York, you know!" as Conny explained. "They have lived in alittle apartment, very comfortably, and know nice people. Their friends aregood to them. But if they take to having children!" It meant, according toConny's expressive gesture, suburban life, or something "way up town, " "nofriends. " Small wonder that Annie Silver's face was drawn, and that she wasmaking nervous efforts to keep up to the last. Isabelle felt that it mustbe a tragedy, and as Conny said, "Such a clever man, too!"

 * * * * *

Mrs. Bertram's deep rooms were well filled, and Cairy, who still served asher monitor, told Isabelle that most of the women were merely fashionable. The men--and there was a good sprinkling of them--counted; they all hadtickets of one sort or another, and he told them off with a keen phrase foreach. When the music began, Isabelle found herself in a recess of thefarther room with several people whom she did not know. Cairy haddisappeared, and Isabelle settled back to enjoy the music and study thecompany. In the kaleidoscope of the day, however, another change was tocome, --one that at the time made no special impression on her, but one thatshe was to remember years afterward. 

A young man had been singing some songs. When he rose from the piano, thepeople near Isabelle began to chatter:--

"Isn't he good looking! ... That was his own music, --the Granite City ... Can't you see the tall buildings, hear the wind sweeping from the sea andrushing through the streets!" etc. Presently there was a piece of music fora quartette. At its conclusion a voice said to Isabelle from behind herchair:--

"Pardon me, but do you know what that was?"

She looked over her shoulder expecting to see an acquaintance. The man whohad spoken was leaning forwards, resting one elbow on her chair, his handcarelessly plucking his gray hair. He had deep piercing black eyes, and anodd bony face. In spite of his gray hair and lined face she saw that he wasnot old. 

"Something Russian, I heard some one say, " Isabelle replied. 

"I don't like to sit through music and not know anything about it, " thestranger continued with a delicate, deliberate enunciation. "I don'tbelieve that I should be any wiser if I heard the name of the piece; but itflatters your vanity, I suppose, to know it. There is Carova standingbeside Mrs. Bertram; he's going to sing. "

"Who is Carova?" Isabelle demanded eagerly. 

"The new tenor at the Manhattan, --you haven't heard him?"

"No, " Isabelle faltered and felt ashamed as she added, "You see I am almosta stranger in New York. "

"Mrs. Bertram knows a lot of these musical chaps. "

Then the tenor sang, and after the applause had given way to another rustleof talk, the gray-haired man continued as if there had been nointerruption:--

"So you don't live in New York?--lucky woman!"

Isabelle moved her chair to look at this person, who wanted to talk. Shethought him unusual in appearance, and liked his friendliness. His face waslined and thin, and the long, thin hand on his knee was muscular. Isabelledecided that he must be Somebody. 

"I am here for my health, but I expect to live in New York, " she explained. 

"In New York for your health?" he asked in a puzzled tone. "You see, I am adoctor. "

"Yes--I came to consult Dr. Potts. I gave out, --am always giving out, "Isabelle continued with that confiding frankness that always pleased men. "I'm like so many women these days, --no good, nerves! If you are a doctor, please tell me why we should all go to pieces in this foolish fashion?"

"If _I_ could do that satisfactorily and also tell you how not to go topieces, I should be a very famous man, " he replied pleasantly. 

"Perhaps you are!"

"Perhaps. But I haven't discovered that secret, yet. "

"Dr. Potts says it's all the chemistry inside us--autointoxication, poison!"

"Yes, that is the latest theory. "

"It seems reasonable; but why didn't our grandmothers get poisoned?"

"Perhaps they did, --but they didn't know what to call it. "

"You think that is so, --that we are poor little chemical retorts? Itsounds--horrid. "

"It sounds sensible, but it isn't the whole of it. "

"Tell me what you think!"

"I don't like to interfere with Dr. Potts, " he suggested. 

"I shouldn't talk to you professionally, I know; but it is in my mind mostof the time. What is the matter? What is wrong?"

"I, too, have thought about it a great deal. " He smiled and his black eyeshad a kindly gleam. 

"Do you believe as Dr. Potts does that it is all what you eat, just matter?If your mind is so much troubled, if you have these queer ideas, it can'tbe altogether the chemistry?"

"It might be the soul. "

"Don't laugh--"

"But I really think it might be the soul. "

The music burst upon them, and when there was another interval, Isabellepersisted with the topic which filled her mind. 

"Will you tell me what you mean by the soul?"

"Can _you_ answer the question? ... Well, since we are both in doubt, letus drop the term for a while and get back to the body. "

"Only we must not end with it, as Potts does!"

"No, we must not end with the body. "

"First, what causes it, --hysterics, nerves, no-goodness, --the whole thing?"

"Improper food, bad education, steam heat, variable climate, inbreeding, lack of children, --shall I stop?"

"No! I can't find a reasonable cause yet. "

"I haven't really begun.... The brain is a delicate instrument. It can do agood deal of work in its own way, if you don't abuse it--"

"Overwork it?" suggested Isabelle. 

"I never knew an American woman who overworked her brain, " he retortedimpatiently. "I mean abuse it. It's grossly abused. "

"Wrong ideas?"

"No ideas at all, in the proper sense, --it's stuffed with all sorts ofthings, --sensations, emotions.... Where are you living?"

"At the Metropole. "

"And where were you last month?"

"In St. Louis. "

"And the month before?"

"I went to Washington with my husband and--"

"Precisely--that's enough!" he waved his thin hand. 

"But it rests me to travel, " Isabelle protested. 

"It seems to rest you. Did you ever think what all those whisking changesin your environment mean to the brain cells? And it isn't just travelling, with new scenes, new people; it is everything in your life, --every act fromthe time you get up to the time you go to bed. You are cramming those braincells all the time, giving them new records to make, --even when you liedown with an illustrated paper. Why, the merest backwoodsman in Iowa isliving faster in a sense than Cicero or Webster.... The gray matter cannotstand the strain. It isn't the quality of what it has to do; it is the mereamount! Understand?"

"I see! I never thought before what it means to be tired. I have worked themachine foolishly. But one must travel fast--be geared up, as you say--orfall behind and become dull and uninteresting. What is living if we can'tkeep the pace others do?"

"Must we? Is that _living_?" he asked ironically. "I have a diary kept byan old great-aunt of mine. She was a country clergyman's wife, away back ina little village. She brought up four sons, helped her husband fit them forcollege as well as pupils he took in, and baked and washed and sewed. Andlearned German for amusement when she was fifty! I think she livedsomewhat, but she probably never lived at the pressure you have the pastmonth. "

"One can't repeat--can't go back to old conditions. Each generation has itsown lesson, its own way. "

"But is our way _living_? Are we living now this very minute, listening tomusic we don't apparently care for, that means nothing to us, with our mindcrammed full of distracting purposes and reflections? When I read my auntMerelda's journal of the silent winter days on the snowy farm, I think_she_ lived, as much as one should live. Living doesn't consist in thenumber of muscular or nervous reactions that you undergo. "

"What is your formula?"

"We haven't yet mentioned the most formidable reason for the Americanplague, " he continued, ignoring her question. "It has to do with thattroublesome term we evaded, --the Soul. "

"The Soul?"... 

The music had come to an end, and the people were moving about them. Cornelia came up and drawled:--

"Tom and I are going on, --will you go with us?"

When Isabelle reached her hostess, she had but one idea in her mind, andexclaimed impulsively to that somewhat bored lady:--

"Who is that man just going out? With gray hair? The tall, thin man?"

"Dr. Renault? He's a surgeon, operates on children, --has done something orother lately. "... 

She smiled at Isabelle's impulsiveness, and turned to another. 

'A surgeon, ' Isabelle thought. 'What has he to do with the soul?'

In a few moments she had a chance to repeat her question aloud to Dr. Renault when they left the house together. 

"Did you ever hear, " he replied directly, "that a house divided againstitself will fall?"

"Of course. "

"I should say that this national disease, which we have been discussing, isone of the results of trying to live with divided souls, --souls torn, distraught!"

"And we need--?"

"A religion. "

The doctor raised his hat and sauntered down the avenue. 

"A religion!" Isabelle murmured, --a queer word, here at the close of Mrs. Bertram's pleasantly pagan Sunday afternoon, with ladies of undoubtedsocial position getting into their motors, and men lighting cigarettes andcigars to solace them on the way to their clubs. Religion! and the need ofit suggested by a surgeon, a man of science.... 

When the three reached the Woodyards' house, Conny paused with, "When shallI see you again?" which Isabelle understood as a polite dismissal. Cairy toher surprise proposed to walk to the hotel with her. Isabelle felt thatthis arrangement was not in the plan, but Conny merely waved her hand witha smile, --"By-by, children. "

They sauntered up the avenue, at the pace required by Cairy's disability. The city, although filled with people loitering in holiday ease, had astrange air of subdued life, of Sunday peace, not disturbed even by thedashing motors. Isabelle, bubbling with the day's impressions, was eager totalk, and Cairy, as she had found him before at the Virginia Springs, was asympathetic man to be with. He told her the little semi-scandalous story ofher recent hostess.... "And now they have settled down to bring up thechildren like any good couple, and it threatens to end on the 'live happyever after' note. Sam Bertram is really domestic, --you can see he admiresher tremendously. He sits and listens to the music and nods his sleepy oldhead. "

"And the--other one?" Isabelle asked, laughing in spite of the fact thatshe felt a little shocked. 

"Who knows? ... The lady disappears at rare intervals, and there arerumors. But she is a good sort, and you see Sam admires her, needs her. "

"But it is rather awful when you stop to think of it!"

"Why more awful than if Sam had stuck a knife into the other's ribs orpunctured him with a bullet? ... I think it is rather more intelligent. "

Cairy did not know Renault. "Mrs. Bertram gets everybody, " he said. Isabelle felt no inclination to discuss with Cairy her talk aboutneurasthenia and religion. So their chatter drifted from the people theyhad seen to Cairy himself, his last play, "which was a rank fizzle, " andthe plan of the new one. One got on fast and far with Cairy, if one were awoman and felt his charm. By the time they had reached the hotel, he wascounselling Isabelle most wisely how she should settle herself in New York. "But why don't you live in the country? in that old village Mrs. Woodyardtold me about? The city is nothing but a club, a way-station these days, asort of Fair, you know, where you come two or three times a year to seeyour dressmaker and hear the gossip. "

"But there's my husband!" Isabelle suggested. "You see his business ishere. "

"I forgot the husband, --make him change his business. Besides, men likecountry life. "

 * * * * *

Isabelle found her husband comfortably settled near a hot radiator, readinga novel. Lane occasionally read novels on a Sunday when there wasabsolutely nothing else to do. He read them slowly, with a curious interestin the world they depicted, the same kind of interest that he would take ina strange civilization, like that of the Esquimaux, where phenomena wouldhave only an amusing significance. He dropped his glasses when his wifeappeared and helped himself to a fresh cigar from the box beside him. 

"Have a good time?"

It was the formula that he used for almost every occupation pursued bywomen. Isabelle, throbbing with her new impressions and ideas, found thequestion depressing. John was not the person to pour out one's mind to whenthat mind was in a tumult. He would listen kindly, assent at the wrongplace, and yawn at the end. Undoubtedly his life was exciting, but it hadno fine shades. He was growing stout, Isabelle perceived, and a littleheavy. New York life was not good for him. 

"I thought Conny's house and the people so--interesting, "--she used theuniversal term for a new sensation, --"didn't you?"

"Yes, --very pleasant, " he assented as he would have if it had been theFalkners or the Lawtons or the Frasers. 

In the same undiscriminating manner he agreed with her other remarks aboutthe Woodyards. People were people to him, and life was life, --more or lessthe same thing everywhere; while Isabelle felt the fine shades. 

"I think it would be delightful to know people worth while, " she observedalmost childishly, "people who _do_ something. "

"You mean writers and artists and that kind? I guess it isn't verydifficult, " Lane replied indulgently. 

Isabelle sighed. Such a remark betrayed his remoteness from her idea; shewould have it all to do for herself, when she started her life in New York. 

"I think I shall make over the place at Grafton, " she said after a time. Her husband looked at her with some surprise. She was standing at thewindow, gazing down into the cavernous city in the twilight. He could notpossibly follow the erratic course of ideas through her brain, the tissueof impression and suggestion, that resulted in such a conclusion. 

"Why? what do you want to do with it? I thought you didn't care for thecountry. "

"One must have a background, " she replied vaguely, and continued to stareat the city. This was the sum of her new experience, with all its elements. The man calmly smoking there did not realize that his life, their life, wasto be affected profoundly by such trivial matters as a Sunday luncheon, aremark by Tom Cairy, the savage aspect of the great city seen through Aprilmist, and the low vitality of a nervous organism. But everything plays itspart with an impressionable character in which the equilibrium is not foundand fixed. As the woman stared down into the twilight, she seemed to seeafar off what she had longed for, held out her hands towards, --life. 

Pictures, music, the play of interesting personalities, books, plays, --ideas, --that was the note of the higher civilization that Conny hadcaught. If Conny had absorbed all this so quickly, why could not she?Cornelia Woodyard--that somewhat ordinary schoolmate of her youth--wasbecoming for Isabelle a powerful source of suggestion, just as Isabelle hadbeen for Bessie Falkner in the Torso days. 

CHAPTER XXIX

When Mrs. Woodyard returned to her house at nine o'clock in the evening andfound it dark, no lights in the drawing-room or the library, no firelighted in either room, she pushed the button disgustedly and flung hercloak into a chair. 

"Why is the house like a tomb?" she demanded sharply of the servant, whoappeared tardily. 

"Mrs. Woodyard was not expected until later. "

"That should make no difference, " she observed curtly, and the flusteredservant hastened to pull curtains, light lamps, and build up the fire. 

Conny disliked entering a gloomy house. Moreover, she disliked explainingthings to servants. Her attitude was that of the grand marshal of life, whoonce having expressed an idea or wish expects that it will be properlyfulfilled. This attitude worked perfectly with Percy and the children, andusually with servants. No one "got more results" in her establishment withless worry and thought than Mrs. Woodyard. The resolutely expectantattitude is a large part of efficiency. 

After the servant had gathered up her wrap and gloves, Conny looked overthe room, gave another curve to the dark curtains, and ordered whiskey andcigarettes. It was plain that she was expecting some one. She had gone tothe Hillyers' to dinner as she had promised Percy, and just as the partywas about to leave for the opera had pleaded a headache and returned home. It was true that she was not well; the winter had taxed her strength, andshe lived quite up to the margin of her vitality. That was her plan, also. Moreover, the day had contained rather more than its share of problems.... 

When Cairy's light step pressed the stair, she turned quickly from thefire. 

"Ah, Tommy, --so you got my message?" She greeted him with a slow smile. "Where were you dining?"

"With the Lanes. Mrs. Lane and I saw _The Doll's House_ this afternoon. " AsConny did not look pleased, he added, "It is amusing to show Ibsen to achild. "

"Isabelle Lane is no child. "

"She takes Shaw and Ibsen with that childlike earnestness which has giventhose two great fakirs a posthumous vogue, " Cairy remarked with a yawn. "Ifit were not for America, --for the Mississippi Valley of America, one mightsay, --Ibsen would have had a quiet grave, and Shaw might remain the Celticbuffoon. But the women of the Mississippi Valley have made a gospel out ofthem.... It is as interesting to hear them discuss the new dogmas onmarriage as it is to see a child eat candy. "

"You seem to find it so--with Isabelle. "

"She is very intelligent--she will get over the Shaw-measles quickly. "

"You think so?" Conny queried. "Well, with all that money she might dosomething, if she had it in her.... But she is middle class, inideas, --always was. "

That afternoon Isabelle had confided her schoolgirl opinion of Mrs. Woodyard to Cairy. The young man balancing the two judgments smiled. 

"She is good to behold, " he observed, helping himself to whiskey. 

"Not your kind, Tommy!" Conny warned with a laugh. "The Prices are very_good_ people. You'll find that Isabelle will keep you at the properdistance. "

Cairy yawned as if the topic did not touch him. "I thought you were goingto _Manon_ with the Hillyers. "

"I was, --but I came home instead!" Conny replied softly, and their eyesmet. 

"That was kind of you, " he murmured, and they were silent a long time. 

It had come over her suddenly in the afternoon that she must see Cairy, must drink again the peculiar and potent draught which he alone of menseemed to be able to offer her. So she had written the note and made theexcuse. She would not have given up the Hillyers altogether. They wereimportant to Percy just now, and she expected to see the Senator there andaccomplish something with him. It was clearly her duty, her plan of life asshe saw it, for her to go to the Hillyers'. But having put in anappearance, flattered the old lawyer, and had her little talk with SenatorThomas before dinner, she felt that she had earned her right to a few hoursof sentimental indulgence.... 

Conny, sitting there before the fire, looking her most seductive best, hadthe clear conscience of a child. Her life, she thought, was arduous, andshe met its demands admirably, she also thought. The subtleties of feelingand perception never troubled her. She felt entitled to her sentimentalrepose with Cairy as she felt entitled to her well-ordered house. She didnot see that her "affair" interfered with her duties, or with Percy, orwith the children. If it should, --then it would be time to consider.... 

"Tommy, " she murmured plaintively, "I am so tired! You are the only personwho rests me. "

She meant it quite literally, that he always rested and soothed her, andthat she was grateful to him for it. But the Southerner's pulses leaped atthe purring words. To him they meant more, oh, much more! He gave herstrength; his love was the one vital thing she had missed in life. Thesentimentalist must believe that; must believe that he is giving, and thatsome generous issue justifies his passion. Cairy leaning forwardcaressingly said:--

"You make me feel your love to-night! ... Wonderful one! ... It is all oursto-night, in this still room. "

She did not always make him feel that she loved him, far from it. And ithurt his sentimental soul, and injured his vanity. He would be capable of agreat folly with sufficient delusion, but he was not capable of lovingintensely a woman who did not love him. To-night they seemed in harmony, and as their lips met at last, the man had the desired illusion--she washis!

They are not coarsely physiological, --these Cairys, the born lovers. Theylook abhorrently on mere flesh. With them it must always be the spirit thatleads to the flesh, and that is their peculiar danger. Society can alwaystake care of the simply licentious males; women know them and for the mostpart hate them. But the poet lovers--the men of "temperament"--are fatal toits prosaic peace. These must "love" before they can desire, must gratifythat emotional longing first, pour themselves out, and have the ecstasybefore the union. That is their fatal nature. The state of love is theiropiate, and each time they dream, it is the only dream. Each woman who cangive them the dream is the only woman, --she calls to them with a singlevoice. And they divine afar off those women whose voices will call.... 

What would come after? ... The woman looked up at the man with a peculiarlight in her eyes, a gentleness which never appeared except for him, andheld him from her, dreaming intangible things.... She, too, could dreamwith him, --that was the wonder of it all to her! This was the force thathad taken her out of her ordinary self. She slipped into nothing--neverdrifted--looked blind fate between the eyes. But now she dreamed! ... Andas the man spoke to her, covered her with his warm terms of endearment, shelistened--and forgot her little world. 

Even the most selfish woman has something of the large mother, the givingquality, when a man's arms hold her. She reads the man's need and wouldsupply it. She would comfort the inner sore, supply the lack. And for thismoment, Conny was not selfish: she was thinking of her lover's needs, andhow she could meet them. 

Thus the hour sped. 

"You love--you love!" the man said again and again, --to convince himself. 

Conny smiled disdainfully, as at the childish iteration of a child, butsaid nothing. Finally with a long sigh, coming back from her dream, sherose and stood thoughtfully before the fire, looking down at Cairyreflectively. He had the bewildered feeling of not understanding what wasin her mind. 

"I will dine with you to-morrow, " she remarked at last. 

Cairy laughed ironically. It was the perfect anti-climax, --after all thisunfathomable silence, after resting in his arms, --"I will dine with youto-morrow!"

But Conny never wasted words, --the commonest had a meaning. While he wassearching for the meaning under this commonplace, there was the noise ofsome one entering the hall below. Conny frowned. Another interruption inher ordered household! Some servant was coming in at the front door. Or aburglar?

If it were a burglar, it was a very well assured one that closed the doorcarefully, took time to lay down hat and coat, and then with well-bredquiet ascended the stairs. 

"It must be Percy, " Conny observed, with a puzzled frown. "Something musthave happened to bring him back to-night. "

Woodyard, seeing a light in the library, looked in, the traveller's wearysmile on his face. 

"Hello, Percy!" Conny drawled. "What brings you back at this time?"

Woodyard came into the room draggingly, nodded to Cairy, and drew a chairup to the fire. His manner showed no surprise at the situation. 

"Some things came up at Albany, " he replied vaguely. "I shall have to goback to-morrow. "

"What is it?" his wife demanded quickly. 

"Will you give me a cigarette, Tom?" he asked equably, indicating that hepreferred not to mention his business, whatever it might be. Cairy handedhim his cigarette case. 

"These are so much better than the brand Con supplies me with, " he observedlightly. 

He examined the cigarette closely, then lit it, and remarked:--

"The train was beastly hot. You seem very comfortable here. "

Cairy threw away his cigarette and said good-by. 

"Tom, " Conny called from the door, as he descended, "don't forget thedinner. " She turned to Percy, --"Tom is taking me to dinner to-morrow. "

There was silence between husband and wife until the door below clicked, and then Conny murmured interrogatively, "Well?"

"I came back, " Percy remarked calmly, "because I made up my mind that thereis something rotten on in that Commission. "

Conny, after her talk with the Senator, knew rather more about theCommission than her husband; but she merely asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I want to find just who is interested in this up-statewater-power grant before I go any farther. That is why I came down, --to seeone or two men, especially Princhard. "

While Cornelia was thinking of certain remarks that the Senator had made, Percy added, "I am not the Senator's hired man. "

"Of course not!"

Her husband's next remark was startling, --"I have almost made up my mind toget out, Con, --to take Jackson's offer of a partnership and stick to thelaw. "

Here, Conny recognized, was a crisis, and like most crises it cameunexpectedly. Conny rose to meet it. Husband and wife discussed thesituation, personal and political, of Percy's fortunes for a long time, andit was not settled when it was time for bed. 

"Con, " her husband said, still sitting before the fire as she turned outthe lights and selected a book for night reading, "aren't you going prettyfar with Tom?"

Conny paused and looked at him questioningly. 

"Yes, " she admitted in an even voice. "I have gone pretty far.... I wantedto tell you about it. But this political business has worried you so muchlately that I didn't like to add anything. "

As Percy made no reply, she said tentatively:--

"I may go farther, Percy.... Tom loves me--very much!"

"It means that--you care for him--the same way?"

"He's given me something, " Conny replied evasively, "something I neverfelt--just that way--before. "

"Yes, Tom is of an emotional nature, " Woodyard remarked dryly. 

"You don't like Tom. Men wouldn't, I can understand. He isn't like mostmen.... But women like him!"

Then for a while they waited, until he spoke, a little wearily, dispassionately. 

"You know, Con, I always want you to have everything that is best foryou--that you feel you need to complete your life. We have been the bestsort of partners, trying not to limit each other in any way.... I know Ihave never been enough for you, given you all that you ought to have, insome ways. I am not emotional, as Tom is! And you have done everything forme. I shall never forget that. So if another can do something for you, makeyour life happier, fuller, --you must do it, take it. I should be a beastlypig to interfere!"

He spoke evenly, and at the end he smiled rather wanly. 

"I know you mean it, Percy, --every word. But I shouldn't want you to beunhappy, " replied Conny, in a subdued voice. 

"You need not think of me--if you feel sure that this is best for you. "

"You know that I could not do anything that might hurt our life, --_that_ isthe most important!"

Her husband nodded. 

"The trouble is that I want both!" she analyzed gravely; "both in differentways. "

A slight smile crept under her husband's mustache, but he made no comment. 

"I shall always be honest with you, Percy, and if at any time it becomes--"

"You needn't explain, " Percy interrupted hurriedly. "I don't ask! I don'twant to know what is peculiarly your own affair, as this.... As I said, youmust live your life as you choose, not hampered by me. We have alwaysbelieved that was the best way, and meant it, too, haven't we?"

"But you have never wanted your own life, " Conny remarked reflectively. 

"No, not that way!" The look on Percy's face made Conny frown. She wasafraid that he was keeping something back. 

"I suppose it is different with a man. "

"No, not always, " and the smile reappeared under the mustache, a painfulsmile. "But you see in my case I never wanted--more. "

"Oh!" murmured Conny, more troubled than ever. 

"You won't do it lightly, whatever you do, I know! ... And I'll manage--Ishall be away a good deal this winter. "

There was another long silence, and when Conny sighed and prepared to leavethe room, Percy spoke:--

"There's one thing, Conny.... This mustn't affect the children. "

"Oh, Percy!" she protested. "Of course not. "

"You must be careful that it won't--in any way, you understand. That wouldbe very--wrong. "

"Of course, " Conny admitted in the same slightly injured tone, as if hewere undervaluing her character. "Whatever I do, " she added, "I shall notsacrifice you or the children, naturally. "

"We needn't talk more about it, then, need we?"

Conny slowly crossed the room to her husband, and putting one hand on hisshoulder she leaned down and pushed up the hair from his forehead, murmuring:--

"You know I love you, Percy!"

"I know it, dear, " he answered, caressing her face with his fingers. "If Idon't happen to be enough for you, it is my fault--not yours. "

"It isn't that!" she protested. But she could not explain what else it wasthat drew her to Cairy so strongly. "It mustn't make any difference betweenus. It won't, will it?"

Percy hesitated a moment, still caressing the lovely face. 

"I don't think so, Con.... But you can't tell that now--do you think?"

"It mustn't!" she said decisively, as if the matter was wholly in her ownhands. And leaning still closer towards him, she whispered: "You arewonderful to me. A man who can take things as you do is really--big!" Shemeant him to understand that she admired him more than ever, that inrespect to character she recognized that he was larger and finer than theother man. 

Percy kissed the cheek so close to his lips. Conny shrank back perceptibly. Some elemental instinct of the female pushed its way through herbroad-minded modern philosophy and made her shudder at the double embrace. She controlled herself at once and again bowed her beautiful head to his. But Percy did not offer to kiss her. 

"There are other things in life than passion, " she remarked slowly. 

Percy looking directly into her eyes observed dryly: "Oh, many more.... Butpassion plays the deuce with the rest sometimes!"

And he held open the door for his wife to leave the room. 

CHAPTER XXX

"That snipe!" Conny called Margaret's husband, Mr. Lawrence Pole. Larry, ashe was known in his flourishing days when he loafed in brokers' offices, and idiotically dribbled away his own fortune and most of his wife's, rarely earned a better word than this epithet. "She ought to leavehim--divorce him--get rid of such rubbish somehow, " Conny continued withunwonted heat, as the tired motor chugged up the steep Westchester hillsideon its way to Dudley Farms where the Poles lived. 

"Perhaps Margaret has prejudices, " Isabella suggested. "You know she usedto be religious, and there's her father, the Bishop. "

"It would take a good many bishops to keep me tied to Larry!"

Conny was enjoying the early spring air, the virginal complexion of theApril landscape. She surveyed the scene from Isabelle's motor withcomplacent superiority. How much better she had arranged her life thaneither Margaret or Isabelle! After the talk with Percy the previousevening, she felt a new sense of power and competency, with a touch ofgratitude for that husband who had so frankly and unselfishly "accepted herpoint of view" and allowed her "to have her own life" without a distressingsense of wrecking anything. Conny's conscience was simple, almostrudimentary; but it had to be satisfied, such as it was. To-day it wascompletely satisfied, and she took an ample pleasure in realizing how wellshe had managed a difficult situation, --and also in the prospect of dinnerwith her lover in the evening. 

That morning before the motor had come for her, she had gone over withPercy the complicated situation that had developed at Albany. It was herway in a crisis to let him talk it all out first, and then later, preferably when he came to her room in the morning after his breakfast withthe children, to suggest those points which she wished to determine hisaction. Thus her husband absorbed her views when they would make mostimpression and in time came to believe that they were all evolved from hisinner being.... To-day when he appeared shortly before her coffee, she hadglanced at him apprehensively out of her sleepy eyes. But he betrayed nosign of travail of spirit. Though naturally weary after his brief rest, hehad the same calm, friendly manner that was habitual with him. So they gotat once to the political situation. 

She was content with the way in which she had led him, for the time atleast, to resolve his doubts and suspicions. They had no reason to suspectthe Senator, --he had always encouraged Woodyard's independent position inpolitics and pushed him. There was not yet sufficient evidence of fraud inthe hearings before the Commission to warrant aggressive action. It wouldbe a pity to fire too soon, or to resign and lose an opportunity later. Itwould mean not only political oblivion, but also put him in a ridiculouslight in the press, and suggest cowardice, etc. So he had gone away toattend to some matters at his office, and take an afternoon train back toAlbany, with the conviction that "he must do nothing hurriedly, before thesituation had cleared up. " Those were his own phrases; Conny alwayspreferred to have Percy use his own words to express his resolves. 

There was only one small matter on her mind: she must see the Senator andfind out--well, as much as she could discreetly, and be prepared for thenext crisis.... 

"I don't see why Margaret buries herself like this, " Conny remarked, comingback to the present foreground, with a disgusted glance at the littlesettlement of Dudley Farms, a sorry combination of the suburb and thevillage, which they were approaching. "She might at least have a flat inthe city somewhere, like others. "

"Margaret wants the children to be in the country. Probably she gets lessof Larry out here, --that may compensate!"

"As for the children, " Conny pronounced with lazy dogmatism, "I don'tbelieve in fussing. Children must camp where it's best for the parents. They can get fresh air in the Park. "

The motor turned in at a neglected driveway, forbidding with blacktree-trunks, and whirled up to the piazza of a brick house, an uglysurvival of the early country mansion. Mrs. Pole, who was bending over ababy carriage within a sun parlor, came forward, a smile of welcome on herpale face. She seemed very small and fragile as she stood above them on thesteps, and her thin, delicate face had the marked lines of a woman offorty. She said in her slow, Southern voice, which had a pleasant humanquality:--

"I hope you weren't mired. The roads are something awful about here. I amso glad to see you both. "

When she spoke her face lost some of the years. 

"It is a long way out, --one can't exactly run in on you, Margaret! If ithadn't been for Isabelle's magnificent car, you might have died withoutseeing me!" Conny poured forth. 

"It _is_ a journey; but you see people don't run in on us often. "

"You've got a landscape, " Conny continued, turning to look across the baretreetops towards the Sound. It would have been a pleasant prospect exceptfor the eruption of small houses on every side. "But how can you stand itthe whole year round? Are there any civilized people--in those houses?" Sheindicated vaguely the patch of wooden villas below. 

"Very few, I suppose, according to your standard, Cornelia. But we don'tknow them. I pulled up the drawbridge when we first came. "

Mrs. Pole's thin lips twitched with mirth, and Conny, who was never contentwith mere inference, asked bluntly:--

"Then what do you do with yourselves--evenings?" Her tone reflected theemptiness of the landscape, and she added with a treble laugh, "I've alwayswondered what suburban life is like!"

"Oh, you eat and read and sleep. Then there are the children daytimes. Ihelp teach 'em. We live the model life, --flowers and shrubs in the summer, I suppose.... The Bishop was with me for a time. "

The large bare drawing-room, which was sunnily lighted from the southwest, was singularly without the usual furniture of what Conny called "civilizedlife. " There were no rugs, few chairs, but one table, such as might be madeby the village carpenter and stained black, which was littered with booksand magazines. There was also a large writing cabinet of mahogany, --amagnificent piece of Southern colonial design, --and before the fire amodern couch. Conny inventoried all this in a glance. She could not "makeit out. " 'They can't be as poor as that, ' she reflected, and turned to thebooks on the table. 

"Weiniger's _Sex and Character_, " she announced, "Brieux's _Maternite_, Lavedan, Stendhal, Strobel on Child Life, --well, you do read! And this?"She held up a yellow volume of French plays. "What do you do with this whenthe, Bishop comes?"

"The Bishop is used to me now. Besides, he doesn't see very well, poordear, and has forgotten his French. Have you read that book of Weiniger's?It is a good dose for woman's conceit these days. "

There was a touch of playful cynicism in the tone, which went with thefleeting smile. Mrs. Pole understood Cornelia Woodyard perfectly, and wasamused by her. But Conny's coarse and determined handling of life did notfascinate her fastidious nature as it had fascinated Isabelle's. 

Conny continued to poke among the books, emitting comments as she happenedupon unexpected things. It was the heterogeneous reading of an untrainedwoman, who was seeking blindly in many directions for guidance, for light, trying to appease an awakened intellect, and to answer certain gnawingquestions of her soul.... 

Isabelle and Margaret talked of their visit at the Virginia Springs. In themature face, Isabelle was seeking the blond-haired girl, with deep-set blueeyes, and sensitive mouth, that she had admired at St. Mary's. Now it wasnot even pretty, although it spoke of race, for the bony features, the highbrow, the thin nose, had emerged, as if chiselled from the flesh by pain. 

'She has suffered, ' Isabelle thought, 'suffered--and lived. '

Conny had recounted to Isabelle on their way out some of the rumors aboutthe Poles. Larry Pole was a weakling, had gone wrong in moneymatters, --nothing that had flared up in scandal, merely familytransactions. Margaret had taken the family abroad--she had inheritedsomething from her mother--and suddenly they had come back to New York, andLarry had found a petty job in the city. Evidently, from the bare house, their hiding themselves out here, most of the wife's money had gone, too. 

Pity! because Margaret was proud. She had her Virginian mother's pride witha note of difference. The mother had been proud in the conventional way, ofher family, her position, --things. Margaret had the pride ofaccomplishment, --of deeds. She was the kind who would have gone ragged witha poet or lived content in a sod hut with a Man. And she had married thisLarry Pole, who according to Conny looked seedy and was often rather"boozy. " How could she have made such a mistake, --Margaret of all women?That Englishman Hollenby, who really was somebody, had been much interestedin her. Why hadn't she married him? Nobody would know the reason.... 

The luncheon was very good. The black cook, "a relic of my mother'sestablishment, " as Margaret explained, gave them a few savory familydishes, and there was a light French wine. Margaret ate little and talkedlittle, seeming to enjoy the vivacity of the other women. 

"Tell about your visit to the Gorings, " Conny drawled. "Percy's cousin, Eugene Goring, who married Aline, you know. Boots in the bath-tub, and thebabies running around naked, and Aline lost in the metaphysics of the arts, making chairs. "

And Isabelle recounted what she had seen of Aline's establishment in St. Louis, with its total disregard of what Conny called the "decencies" oflife. They all laughed at her picture of their "wood-nymph, " as they hadnamed Aline. 

"And Eugene talking anarchy, and washing the dishes, --it sounds like aWeber and Field's farce, " gurgled Conny. "He wrote Percy about lecturing inNew York, --wanted to come East. But Percy couldn't do anything for him. Itisn't a combination to make a drawing-room impression. "

"But, " Margaret protested, "Aline is a person, and that is more than youcan say of most of us married women. She has kept her personality. "

"If I were 'Gene, " Conny replied contemptuously, "I'd tone her'personality' down. "

"He's probably big enough to respect it. "

There followed a discussion of the woman's part in marriage, Margaretdefending independence, "the woman's right to live for herself, " and Connytaking the practical view. 

"She can't be anything any way, just by herself. She had better make themost of the material she's got to work with--or get another helping, " sheadded, thinking of Larry. 

"And Aline isn't happy, " Isabelle remarked; "she has a look on her face asif she were a thousand miles away, and had forgotten her marriage as muchas she could. Her chairs and tables are just ways of forgetting. "

"But they have something to think about, --those two. They don't vegetate. "

"I should say they had, --but no anarchy in my domestic circle, thank you!"Conny observed. 

"I shouldn't object to anarchy, " sighed Margaret, with her whimsical smile. 

"Margaret is bored, " Isabelle pronounced, "simply awfully bored. She's sobored that I expect some day she will poison herself and the children, merely to find out what comes next. "

"No wonder--buried in the snowdrifts out here, " Conny agreed. "Isn't thereanything you want to do, even something wicked?"

"Yes, " Mrs. Pole answered half seriously. "There is _one_ thing I'd like todo before I die. "

"Tell us!"

"I'd like to find Somebody--man or woman--who cared for the things I carefor--sky and clouds and mountains, --and go away with him anywhere for--alittle while, just a little while, " she drawled dreamily, resting herelbows on the table. 

"Elope! Fie, fie!" Conny laughed. 

"My mother's father had a plantation in one of the Windward Islands, "Margaret continued. "It must be nice down there--warm and sunny. I'd liketo lie out on the beach and forget children and servants and husbands, andstop wondering what life is. Yes, I'd like a vacation--in the WindwardIslands, with somebody who understood. "

"To wit, a man!" added Conny. 

"Yes, a man! But only for the trip. "

They laughed a good deal about Margaret's vacation, called her the"Windward Islands, " and asked her to make reservations for them in herParadise when they had found desirable partners. 

"Only, I should have to bring John, and he wouldn't know what to do withhimself on a beach, " Isabelle remarked. "I don't know any one else totake. "

"You mustn't go Windwarding until you have to, " Margaret explained.... 

At the dessert, the children came in, --two boys and a girl. The elder boywas eight, with his mother's fair hair, blue eyes, and fine features, andthe same suggestion of race in the narrow high brow, the upward poise ofthe head. His younger brother was nondescript, with dark hair and fulllips. Margaret observed her children with a curiously detached air, Isabelle thought. Was she looking for signs of Larry in that second son?Alas, she might see Larry always, with the cold apprehension of a woman toowise to deceive herself! The little girl, fresh from her nap, was round andundefined, and the mother took her into her arms, cuddling her close to herbreast, as if nothing, not even the seed of Larry, could separate her fromthis one; as if she felt in her heart all the ills and sorrows, the woman'spains to be, --the eternal feminine defeat, --in this tiny ball of freshness. And the ironical smile subtly softened to a glow of affection. Here, atleast, was an illusion!

Isabelle, watching these two, understood--all the lines, the smile, thelight cynicism--the Windward Islands! She put her arms impulsively aboutthe mother and the child, hugging them closely. Margaret looked up into hershining eyes and pressed her hand.... 

"There are some cigarettes in the other room, " Margaret suggested; "we'llbuild up the fire and continue the argument in favor of the WindwardIslands. "

"It is a long way to New York over that road, " Conny observed. "I have anengagement. "

Now that she had satisfied her curiosity about "how the Poles lived, " shebegan to think of her dinner with Cairy, and was fearful lest she might bedelayed. 

"Spend the night, " suggested Margaret; but Isabelle, who understood Conny, telephoned at once for the motor. 

"You aren't going back to the West, Isabelle?" Margaret asked, while theywaited for the motor. "Won't you miss it?"

"Miss the West? Did you ever know a woman that had escaped from theMississippi Valley who would go back there?" Conny drawled. "Why, Belle islike a girl just out of school, looking at the shop windows!"

Cornelia Woodyard, who had lived a number of years in a corner of that samevast valley, looked from metropolitan heights on the monotony of the"middle West. " She had the New Yorker's amusing incapacity to comprehendexistence outside the neighborhood of Fifth Avenue and Central Park. 

"One lives out there, " Margaret protested with sudden fire, "in those greatspaces. Men grow there. They _do_ things. When my boys are educated I shalltake them away from New York, to the Virginia mountains, perhaps, and havethem grow up there, doing things, real things, working with their hands, becoming men! Perhaps not there, " she mused, recollecting that the acres oftimber and coal in the mountains, her sons' inheritance from her vigorousancestors, had been lost to them in a vulgar stock dealer's gamble by theirfather, --"perhaps out to Oregon, where I have an uncle. His father rode hishorse all the way from Louisiana across the continent, after the War! Hehad nothing but his horse--and before he died he built a city in his newcountry. That is where men do things!"

Margaret had flashed into life again. As Tom Cairy would have said, "_Vraiment, ma petite cousine a une grande ame--etouffee_" (For Cairyalways made his acute observations in the French tongue). 

"There's something of the Amazon in you, Margaret, " Conny remarked, "inspite of your desire to seclude yourself in the Windward Islands with asuitable mate. "

The motor finally came puffing up the drive, and the women stood on theveranda, prolonging their farewells. A round, red, important sun peepedfrom under the gray cloud bank that had lowered all the afternoon, floodingthe thin branches of the budding trees, falling warm and gold across thedead fields. 

"See!" Margaret cried, raising her thin arms to the sun. "The Promise!"

"I hope it will hold until we reach Jerome Avenue, " Conny repliedpractically, preparing to enter the car. 

"The promise of another life!"

Margaret was standing in the sun, her nostrils dilated, absorbing thelight, the source of joy and life. 

"Windward Islands, eh?" Conny coughed, settling herself comfortably in hercorner. 

"The real land, " Margaret murmured to herself. 

The chauffeur had reached for the lever when there appeared on the drivetwo men bearing something between them, a human something, carefully. 

"What's that!" exclaimed Conny in a frightened voice. "What is it?" sherepeated to the chauffeur, --demanding of a man something in his province toknow. 

"Looks though they had a child--hurt, " the chauffeur replied. 

Margaret, shading her eyes with a thin hand, looked down the avenue. Shemade no movement to go towards the men, --merely waited motionless for thething to come. And the men came slowly forward, past the car, up the steps. 

It was the older boy. The man who held the head and shoulders of the childsaid, "An accident--not serious, I believe. "

Margaret opened the door and pointed to the lounge before the fire. The manwho had spoken laid the boy down very gently with his head on a cushion, and smoothed back the rumpled hair. 

"I will go for the doctor, " the other man said, and presently there was thesound of the motor leaping down the hill. 

Margaret had dropped on her knees beside the unconscious boy, and placedone hand on his brow. "Bring some water, " she said to Isabelle, and beganto unbutton the torn sweater. 

Conny, with one look at the white face and closed eyes, went softly outinto the hall and sat down. 

"Will you telephone to Dr. W. S. Rogers in New York, and ask him to sendsome one if he can't come himself?" Margaret asked the stranger, who washelping her with the boy's clothes. 

"Can I telephone any one else--his father?" the man suggested, as he turnedto the door. 

"No--it would be no use--it's too late to reach him. "

Then she turned again to the boy, who was still unconscious.... 

When the man had finished telephoning, he came back through the hall, whereConny was sitting. 

"How did it happen?" she asked. 

"He fell over the culvert, --the high one just as you leave the station, youknow. He was riding his bicycle, --I saw the little chap pushing it up thehill as I got out of the train. Then a big touring car passed me, and metanother one coming down at full speed. I suppose the boy was frightened andtried to get too far out on the culvert and fell over. The motors didn'tnotice him; but when I reached the spot, I saw his bicycle hanging on theedge and looked over for him, --could just see his head in the bushes andleaves. Poor little fellow! It was a nasty fall. But the leaves and therubbish must have broken it somewhat. "

"Rob! Rob Falkner!" Isabelle exclaimed, as the man turned and met her atthe door. "I didn't recognize you--with your beard! How is Bessie?"

"Very well, I believe. She is in Denver, you know. "

When he had gone back to the boy, Isabelle said to Conny:--

"We used to know the Falkners very well. There is a story! ... Strange heshould be _here_. But I heard he was in the East somewhere. "

Conny did not seem interested in Rob Falkner and his turning up at thisjuncture. She sat with a solemn face, wondering how she could get back tothe city. Finally she resolved to telephone Cairy. 

 * * * * *

Falkner went over to the unconscious boy, and taking his hand, counted thepulse. "It's all right so far, " he said to the mother, who did not hearhim. After a time she looked up, and her low voice dragged hoarsely, --"Youmustn't wait. The doctor will be here soon, and we can do everything now. "

"I will wait until the doctor comes, " Falkner replied gently, and steppedto the window to watch for the motor. 

After the local doctor had come and said, "A slight concussion, --nothingserious, I expect, " and the boy had revived somewhat, Conny departed alonein the motor, Isabelle having decided to stay with Margaret over the night. Falkner helped the doctor carry the patient upstairs, and then started toleave. Isabelle waited for him at the door. 

"Mrs. Pole wishes me to thank you for all your kindness. "

"I shall look in to-morrow morning, " he replied hurriedly. "I would staynow until the boy's father came; but I don't suppose there is anything Ican do. I am living at the hotel below, and you can telephone if you wantme. "

"You are living here?"

"Yes; I am working on the new dam, a few miles from this place. "

"I am so glad to see you again, " Isabelle said, the only words she couldthink of. 

"Thank you. "

Then with a curt nod he was off. He had not shown in any way that he wasglad to see her, Isabelle reflected. Falkner was always moody, but she hadthought he liked her, --and after all their friendship! Something had kepther from asking more about Bessie. 

CHAPTER XXXI

Larry did not return for dinner, which Isabelle ate by herself in sombresilence. When she went upstairs to take the mother's place with the boy, Margaret did not seem to notice her husband's absence, though she inquiredrepeatedly whether the New York doctor had telephoned. Later in the eveningwhen Isabelle suggested that some effort should be made to find the boy'sfather, Margaret exclaimed impatiently:--

"I can't tell where he is! ... It is easier for me that he isn't here. " Andin answer to Isabelle's expression, she added: "Don't look so shocked, B!Larry gets on my nerves frightfully when there is anything extra to bear ordo. Of course I shall telephone his office in the morning, and he will comeout at once. That doctor said there would be no change before morning. Doyou suppose he knows anything, that doctor? He had the look of politeignorance!"

The New York doctor arrived towards midnight with a nurse, and stayed thenight to await developments. Margaret still sat by the boy's bed, andIsabelle left her huddled in a large chair, her eyes staring at the shadowon the faintly lighted bed. She had listened to what Dr. Rogers had to saywithout a word. She was almost stone, Isabelle felt, looking at her withsome awe. What could have made her like this!

She was still in this stony mood the next morning when Larry reached thehouse. Dressed in a loose black gown that clung to her slight figure andbrought out the perfect whiteness of her skin, she stood and listenedindifferently to the vague explanation of his absence that her husbandpoured out profusely. Then with a remark that the doctor would see himbefore he went, she left the room. Isabelle, who was present, watched thetwo keenly, trying to divine the secret. To be sure, Larry was notattractive, she decided, --too effusive, too anxious to make the rightimpression, as if he were acting a part before Isabelle, and full of wordyconcern for every one. A little below the medium height, he stood veryerect, consciously making the most of his inches. His sandy hair was thin, and he wore glasses, behind which one eye kept winking nervously. Neatly, almost fashionably dressed, he bore no evident marks of dissipation. AfterConny's description, Isabelle had expected to see his shortcomings writtenall over him. Though he was over-mannered and talkative, there was nothingto mark him as of the outcast class. "One doesn't despise one's husbandbecause he's foolish or unfortunate about money matters, " Isabelle said toherself. And the sympathy that she had felt for Margaret began toevaporate. 

"You say that he fell off that embankment?" Larry remarked to her. "I wasafraid he was too young to ride about here by himself with all the motorsthere are in this neighborhood. But Margaret was anxious to have himfearless.... People who motor are so careless--it has become a curse in thecountry.... Mrs. Woodyard came out with you? I am so sorry this frightfulaccident spoiled your day. "... 

He ran on from remark to remark, with no prompting from Isabelle, and hadgot to their life in Germany when the doctor entered the room. Larry shookhands punctiliously with him, inquiring in a special tone: "I hope you havegood news of the little fellow, Doctor? I thought I would not go up until Ihad seen you first. "... 

The doctor cut short the father's prolixity in a burly voice:--

"It's concussion, passing off, I think. But nobody can say what will happenthen, --whether there is anything wrong with the cord. It may clear up in afew days. It may not. No use speculating.... I shall be back to-morrow orsend some one. Good day. "

Larry followed him into the hall, talking, questioning, exclaiming. Isabella noticed that the doctor gave Pole a quick, impatient glance, shaking him off with a curt reply, and jumped into the waiting carriage. Insome ways men read men more rapidly than women can. They look for fewerdetails, with an eye to the essential stuff of character. 

What had the doctor said to Margaret? Had he let her know his evidentfears? When she came into the room for a moment, there was an expression offixed will in her white face, as if she had gone down into herself andfound there the courage to meet whatever was coming.... 'The older boy, too, ' thought Isabelle, --'the one so like her, with no outward trace of thefather!'

While Margaret was giving directions for telephoning, making in briefphrases her arrangements for the day, Falkner came in. He was in hisworking clothes, and with his thick beard and scrubby mustache looked quiterough beside the trim Larry. 

"How is the boy?" he demanded directly, going up to the mother. 

"Better, I think, --comfortable at least, " she answered gently. There was awarm gleam in her eyes as she spoke to this stranger, as if she had felthis fibre and liked it. 

"I will come in this afternoon. I should like to see him when I can. "

"Yes, this afternoon, " Margaret replied. "I should be glad to have youcome. "

Isabelle had told Pole that Falkner was the man who had found the boy andbrought him home. Larry, with the subtle air of superiority that clothesseem to give a small man, thanked Falkner in suitable language. Isabellehad the suspicion that he was debating with himself whether he should givethis workingman a couple of dollars for his trouble, and with an hystericaldesire to laugh interposed:--

"Mr. Pole, this is Mr. Falkner, an old friend of ours!"

"Oh, " Larry remarked, "I didn't understand!" and he looked at Falkneragain, still from a distance. 

"Rob, " Isabelle continued, turning to Falkner, "you didn't tell meyesterday how Bessie is. I haven't heard from her for a long while, --andMildred?"

"They are well, I believe. Bessie doesn't write often. "

Pole followed him into the hall, making remarks. Isabelle heard Falknerreply gruffly: "Yes, it was a nasty fall. But a kid can fall a good waywithout hurting himself seriously. "

When Pole came back and began to talk to her, Isabelle's sympathy for hiswife revived. The house had settled into the dreary imitation of itscustomary routine that the house of suspense takes on. To live in this, with the mild irritation of Larry's conversational fluency, was quiteintolerable. It was not what he said, but the fact that he was foreversaying it. "A bag of words, " Isabelle called him. "Poor Margaret!" And sheconcluded that there was nothing more useful for her to do than to takeupon herself the burden of Larry until he should dispose of himself in someharmless way. 

CHAPTER XXXII

No, women such as Margaret Pole do not "despise their husbands because theyare unfortunate in money matters, "--not altogether because they provethemselves generally incompetent in the man's struggle for life! Thisprocess of the petrification of a woman's heart, slow or rapid as it maybe, is always interesting, --if the woman is endowed in the first place withthe power to feel. How Margaret Lawton may have come to marry LawrencePole, we can defer for the present, as a matter of post-mortem psychology, unprofitable, melancholy, and inexact, however interesting. How does anywoman come to marry any man? Poets, psychologists, and philosophers havefailed to account for the accidents of this emotional nexus. 

What is determinable and more to our purpose is the subsequent process ofdissolution, or petrifaction. All that need be said is that Margaretmarried her husband when she was twenty-four, with confidence, belief inhim, and a spiritual aspiration concerning marriage not possible to manywho marry. However foolishly she may have deluded herself, --betrayed afatal incapacity to divine, --she believed when she went to the altar withLawrence Pole that she was marrying a Man, --one whom she could respect aswell as love, and to whom she should remain loyally bound in mind and heartand soul. 

She was ardent, this delicate Southern girl. Under a manner that had seemedto comrades at St. Mary's cold because of its reticence, there burned thefire of a crusading race, --of those Southerners who had pushed from the fatlowlands about the sea into the mountains and across them to thewilderness; of that uncle, who after the defeat of his cause had ridden hiscavalry horse across the entire country in search of a new opening, tobuild at forty-three a new life for himself and his wife--after defeat!There was courage, aspiration, the power of deeds in that blood, --note thehigh forehead, the moulded chin, the deep eyes of this woman. And there wasalso in her religious faith, received from her father the Bishop, piety, and accepted beliefs in honor, loyalty, love to one's family and friends, and charity to the world. All this was untested, handed down to her wrappedin the prayer-book by the Bishop. And she had seen a bit of what we callthe world, there in Washington among her mother's friends, --had been gay, perhaps reckless, played like a girl with love and life, those hours ofsunshine. She knew vaguely that some men were liars, and some were carnal;but she came to her marriage virgin in soul as well as body, without a spotfrom living, without a vicious nerve in her body, ready to learn. 

And folly with money, mere incompetence, did not turn that heart tostone, --not that alone. The small segment of the world that knew the Polesmight think so, hearing how Larry had gone into Wall Street and fatuouslyleft there his own small fortune, and later, going back after his lesson, had lost what he could of his wife's property. To be sure, after that first"ill luck, " Margaret's eyes had opened to the fact that her husband was not"practical, " was easily led by vanity. In the Lawton family it had been theMan's part to deal effectively with practical life, and women did notconcern themselves with their judgments. But as Margaret had never expectedto be rich, --had no ambition for place in the social race, --she would havegone back to her blue-capped mountains and lived there contented, "withsomething to look at. " She had urged this course upon her husband after thefirst disaster; but he was too vain to "get out, " to "quit the game, " toleave New York. So with the understanding that henceforth he would stick toprosaic methods of money making, he had started again in his brokeragebusiness. This was at the time when Margaret was occupied with her babies. As the indubitable clay of her idol revealed itself, she had thought thatchild-bearing, child-having would be a tolerable compensation for her idyl. Margaret Pole was one who "didn't mind having babies, " and did not considerthe fatal nine months a serious deprivation of life. She liked it all, shetold Isabelle, and was completely happy only when the children were comingand while they were helpless babies. One real interest suffices for all. 

Then one day, after the second boy was born, Larry came in, shaking in handand heart, and the miserable news was soon out, --"caught in the panic, ""unexpected turn of the market. " But how could he be caught, his wifedemanded, with contracting blue eyes? Had his firm failed? And after alittle, --lie and subterfuge within lie and subterfuge being unwrapped, --itappeared, --the fact. He had "gone into cotton"--with whose money? Hismother's estate, --those excellent four per cent gold bonds that the thriftyjudge had put aside for his widow!

With the look that Margaret gave her husband, he might have seen that theprocess of petrifaction had set in, had gone far, indeed. 

Margaret loved her mother-in-law, --the sweet old woman of gentle fancieswho lived in an old house in an old town on the Massachusetts coast, thetown where she and the judge had grown up. An unworldly, gentle woman, whohad somehow told her daughter-in-law without words that she knew what wasmissing in her woman's heart. No, the judge's widow should not pay for herson's folly! So Margaret sold the New York house, which was hers, and alsosome of those mountain lands that had a growing value now, realizingbitterly that by this early sale she was sacrificing her boys'heritage--the gift of her forefathers--for a miserable tithe of its realvalue, --just because their father was too weak to hold what others hadgiven him; and hadn't kept faith with her like a frank comrade.... What wasleft she took into her own possession. 

So the Poles went abroad, after this. In doubt and distress, in sicknessand divorce, what else does an American do? Margaret had one lingering hopefor her husband. He had a good voice. At college it was consideredremarkable, --a clear, high tenor. He had done little with his gift exceptmake social capital out of it. And he had some aptitude for acting. He hadbeen a four years' star in the college operas. If the judge had notbelonged to the settled classes, Larry might have adorned a "Broadwayshow. " Instead, through his father's influence, he had attemptedfinance--and remained an amateur, a "gentleman. " But now, Margaret said toherself, over there, away from trivial society, --the bungled businesscareer ended, --Larry might turn to his gift seriously. He was onlythirty-two, --not too old, with hard work and steady persistence, which shewould supply, to achieve something. For she would have been content to havehim in the Broadway show; it mattered not to her now what he should do. Andthen she beguiled herself with the hope that some of that intellectuallife, the interests in books, music, art--in ideas--could come to them incommon, --a little of what she had dreamed the husband-and-wife life mightbe like. Thus with clear insight into her husband's nature, with fewillusions, but with tolerance and hope, Margaret betook herself to Munichand settled her family in a little villa on the outskirts, conformable totheir income, --_her_ income, which was all they had. But it mattered notwhat she had to live on; her mother had shown her how to make a littleanswer.... 

At first Larry liked this Munich life. It saved his vanity, and offered aneasy solution for his catastrophe in cotton. He was the artist, not fittedfor business, as his wife saw. He liked to go to concerts and opera, andtake lessons, --but he had to learn German and he was lazy about that. Margaret studied German with him, until the little girl came. Then Larrywas left to amuse himself, and did it. First he found some idle Americanstudents, and ran about with them, and through them he fell in with a womanof the Stacia Conry type, of which there is always a supply in everyagreeable European centre. When Margaret emerged from her retirement andbegan to look about, she found this Englishwoman very prominent on thehorizon. Larry sang with her and drove with her and did the other thingsthat he could not do with his wife. He was the kind of man who finds thenine months of his wife's disability socially irksome, and amuses himselfmore or less innocently. 

Margaret understood. Whether Larry's fondness for Mrs. Demarest wasinnocent or not, she did not care; she was surprised with herself to findthat she had no jealousy whatever. Mrs. Demarest did not exist for her. This Mrs. Conry had a husband who came to Munich after her and bore herback to London. When Larry proposed that they should spend the next seasonin London, his wife said calmly:--

"You may if you like. I am going to return to America. "

"And my work?"

Margaret waved a hand ironically:--

"You will be better alone.... My father is getting old and feeble; I mustsee him. "... 

When the family sailed, Larry was in the party. Mrs. Demarest had writtenhim the proper thing to write after such an intimacy, and Larry felt thathe must "get a job. "... 

In those months of the coming of the little girl and the summer afterwards, the new Margaret had been born. It was a quiet woman, outwardly calm, inwardly thinking its way slowly to conclusions, --thoughts that would havesurprised the good Bishop. For when her heart had begun to grow cold in theprocess of petrifaction, there had awakened a new faculty, --her mind. Shebegan to digest the world. Those little rules of life, the ones handed downwith the prayer-book, having failed, she asked questions, --'What is life?What is a woman's life? What is my life? What is duty? A woman's duty? Myduty, married to Larry?'... 

And one by one with relentless clarity she stripped bare all thoseplatitudinous precepts that she had inherited, had accepted, as one acceptsthe physical facts of the world. When the untrained mind of a woman, drivenin on itself by some spiritual bruise, begins to reach out for light, theend may be social Anarchy. Margaret read and understood French and German, and she had ample time to read. She saw modern plays that presented facts, naked and raw, and women's lives from the inside, without regard to themoral convention. She perceived that she had a soul, an inner life of herown, apart from her husband, her children, her father, from all the world. That soul had its own rights, --must be respected. What it might compel herto do in the years to come, was not yet clear. She waited, --growing. If ithad not been for her father, she would have been content to stay on inEurope as she was, reading, thinking, loving her children. 

On the way back to America, Larry, becoming conscious in the monotony ofthe voyage of his own insufficiency and failure, hinted that he was readyto accept the mountain home, which Margaret still retained, her mother'sold house. "We might try living in the country, " he suggested. ButMargaret, focussing in one rapid image the picture of her husband alwaysbefore her in the intimacy of a lonely country life, Larry disintegratingin small ways, shook her head firmly, giving as an excuse, "The childrenmust have schools. " She would set him at some petty job in the city, anything to keep him from rotting completely. For he was the father of herchildren!

The good old Bishop met them at the pier in New York. In spite of hishardened convictions about life, the little rule of thumb by which helived, he knew something of men and women; and he suspected that process ofpetrifaction in his daughter's heart. So he took occasion to say in theirfirst intimate talk:--

"I am glad that you and Lawrence have decided to come home to live. It isnot well for people to remain long away from their own country, to evadethe responsibilities of our social brotherhood. The Church preaches thehighest communism, ... And you must help your husband to find some definiteservice in life, and do it. "

Margaret's lips curved dangerously, and the Bishop, as if answering thissign, continued:--

"Lawrence does not show great power, I know, my dear. But he is a goodman, --a faithful husband and a kind father. That is much, Margaret. Itrests with you to make him more!"

'Does it?' Margaret was asking herself behind her blank countenance. 'Onecannot make bricks without straw.... What is that sort of goodness worth ina man? I had rather my husband were what you call a bad man--and a Man. 'But she said nothing. 

"Thus our Lord has ordered it in this life, " continued the Bishop, feelingthat he was making headway; "that one who is weak is bound to one who isstronger, --perchance for the good of both. "

Margaret smiled. 

"And a good woman has always the comfort of her children, --when she hasbeen blessed with them, --who will grow to fill the desolate places in herheart, " concluded the good Bishop, feeling that he had irrefutablypresented to his daughter the right ideas. But the daughter was thinking, with the new faculty that was awakening in her:--

'Do children fill the desolate spots in a woman's heart completely? I lovemine, even if they are spotted with his weaknesses. I am a good mother, --Iknow that I am, --yet I could love, --oh, I could love grandly some one else, and love them more because of it! At thirty a woman is not done withloving, even though she has three children. '

But she did not dispute her father's words, merely saying in a weary voice, "I suppose Larry and I will make a life of it, as most people do, somehow!"

Nevertheless, as she spoke these words of endurance, there was welling upwithin her the spirit of rebellion against her lot, --the ordinary lot ofacceptance. She had a consciousness of power in herself to live, to besomething other than the prosaic animal that endures. 

 * * * * *

The Poles took the house at Dudley Farms and began the routine of Americansuburban life, forty miles from New York. After several months of futileeffort, spaced by periods of laziness that Margaret put an end to, agentleman's job was secured for Larry, through the kindness of one of hisfather's friends. At first Larry was inclined to think that the work wouldbelittle him, spoil his chances of "better things. " But Margaret, seeingthat as assistant secretary to the Malachite Company he could do no harm, could neither gamble nor loaf, replied to these doubts in a tone of coldirony:--

"You can resign when you find something better suited to your talents. "

Thus at thirty-five Larry was _range_ and a commuter. He dressed well, keptup one of his clubs, talked the condition of the country, and was a kindfather to his boys.... 'What more should a woman expect?' Margaret askedherself, thinking of her father's words and enumerating her blessings. Three healthy children, a home and enough to eat and wear, a husband who(in spite of Conny's gossip) neither drank to excess nor was unfaithful norbeat her, --who had none of the obvious vices of the male! Good God!Margaret sighed with a bitter sense of irony. 

"I must be a wicked woman, " her mother would have said under similarcircumstances, --and there lies the change in woman's attitude. 

Looking across the table at Larry in his neat evening clothes, --he wasgrowing a trifle stout these days, --listening to his observations on therailroad service, or his suggestion that she should pay more attention todress, Margaret felt that some day she must shriek maniacally. But insteadher heart grew still and cold, and her blue eyes icy. 

"What is there in woman that makes trifles so important?" she askedIsabelle in a rare effusion of truth-speaking. "Why do some voices--correctand well-bred ones--exasperate you, and others, no better, fill you withcontent, comfort? Why do little acts--the way a man holds a book or strokeshis mustache--annoy you? Why are you dead and bored when you walk with oneperson, and are gay when you walk by yourself?"

To all of which Isabelle sagely replied: "You think too much, Margaretdear. As John says when I ask him profound questions, 'Get up againstsomething real!'"

For Isabelle could be admirably wise where another was concerned. 

"Yes, " Margaret admitted, "I suppose I am at fault. It is my job to makelife worth living for all of us, --the Bishop, mother-in-law, children, Larry, --all but myself. That's a woman's privilege. "

So she did her "job. " But within her the lassitude of dead things was evergrowing, sapping her physical buoyancy, sapping her will. She called to hersoul, and the weary spirit seemed to have withdrawn. 

"A case of low vitality, " in the medical jargon of the day. And hers was avital stock, too. 

'In time, ' she said, 'I shall be dead, and then I shall be a goodwoman, --wholly good! The Bishop will be content. ' And she smiled in denialof her own words. For even then, at the lowest ebb, her soul spoke: therewas wonder and joy and beauty somewhere in this gray procession ofphenomena, and it must come to her sometime. And when it came, her heartsaid, she would grasp it!

CHAPTER XXXIII

These days Larry Pole began to think well of himself once more. He had madehis mistakes, --what man hasn't?--but he had wiped out the score, and he wasfulfilling the office of under-secretary to the great Malachite Companyadmirably. He was conscious that the men in the office felt that hispersonality, his bearing, and associations gave distinction to the place. And he still secretly looked for some turn in the game which would put himwhere he desired to be. In New York the game is always on, the tablesalways set: from the newsboy to the magnate the gambler's hope is open toevery man. 

Only one thing disturbed his self-complacency, --Margaret treated himindifferently, coldly. He even suspected that though by some accident shehad borne him three children he had never won her love, that she had neverbeen really his. Since their return from Europe and establishing themselvesin the country, she had withdrawn more and more from him--where? Intoherself. She had her own room and dressing-room, beyond the children'squarters, in the rear of the rambling house, and her life seemed to go onin those rooms more and more. It was almost, Larry observed discontentedly, as if there were not a husband in the situation. Well, he reflectedphilosophically, women were like that, --American women; they thought theyowned themselves even after they had married. If a wife took that attitude, she must not complain if the husband went his way, too. Larry in theseinjured moods felt vague possibilities of wickedness within him, --justifiederrancies.... 

One day he was to see deep into that privacy, to learn all--all he wascapable of understanding--about his wife. Margaret had been to the city, --arare event, --had lunched with Isabella, and gone to see a new actress in aclever little German play. She and Isabelle had talked it over, --veryanimatedly. Then she had brought back with her some new books and foreignreviews. After dinner she was lying on the great lounge before the fire, curled up in a soft dress of pale lilac, seriously absorbing an article ona Russian playwright. Hers was a little face, --pale, thin, with sunkeneyes. The brow was too high, and latterly Margaret paid no attention toarranging her hair becomingly. It was not a face that could be calledpretty; it would not be attractive to most men, her husband thought as hewatched her. But it had drawn some men strongly, fired them; and Larrystill longed for its smiles, --desired her. 

He had felt talkative that evening, had chattered all through dinner, andshe had listened tolerantly, as she might to her younger boy when he had agreat deal to say about nothing. But now she had taken refuge in thisreview, and Larry had dropped from sight. When he had finished hiscigarette, he sat down on the edge of the lounge, taking her idle hand inhis. She let him caress it, still reading on. After a time, as he continuedto press the hand, his wife said without raising her eyes:--

"What do you want?"

"'What do you want?'" Larry mimicked! "Lord! you American women are as hardas stone. "

"Are the others different?" Margaret asked, raising her eyes. 

"They say they are--how should I know?"

"I thought you might know from experience, " she observed equably. 

"I have never loved any woman but you, Margaret!" he said tenderly. "Youknow that!"

Margaret made no response. The statement seemed to demand something of herwhich she could not give. He took her hand again, caressed it, and finallykissed her. She looked at him steadily, coldly. 

"Please--sit over there!" As her husband continued to caress her, she satupright. "I want to say something to you, Larry. "

"What is it?"

"There can't be any more of _that_--you understand?--between us. "

"What do you mean?"

"I mean--_that_, what you call love, passion, is over between us. "

"Why? ... What have I done?"

Margaret waved her hand impatiently:--

"It makes no difference, --I don't want it--I can't--that is all. "

"You refuse to be my wife?"

"Yes, --that way. "

"You take back your marriage vow?" (Larry was a high churchman, which facthad condoned much in the Bishop's eyes. )

"I take back--myself!"

Margaret's eyes shone, but her voice was calm. 

"If you loved any other man--but you are as cold as ice!"

"Am I?"

"Yes! ... I have been faithful to you always, " he observed by way ofdefence and accusation. 

Margaret rose from the couch, and looked down at her husband, almostcompassionately. But when she spoke, her low voice shook with scorn:--

"That is your affair, --I have never wanted to know.... You seem to prideyourself on that. Good God! if you were more of a man, --if you were manenough to want anything, even sin, --I might love you!"

It was like a bolt of white fire from the clear heavens. Her husbandgasped, scarcely comprehending the words. 

"I don't believe you know what you are saying. Something has upset you.... Would you like me to love another woman? That's a pretty idea for a wife toadvance!"

"I want you to--oh, what's the use of talking about it, Larry? You knowwhat I mean--what I think, what I have felt--for a long time, even beforelittle Elsa came. How can you want love with a woman who feels towards youas I do?"

"It is natural enough for a man who cares for his wife--"

"Too natural, " Margaret laughed bitterly. "No, Larry; that's all over! Youcan do as you like, --I shan't ask questions. And we shall get on very well, like this. "

"This comes of the rotten books you read!" he fumed. 

"I do my own thinking. "

"Suppose I don't want the freedom you hand out so readily?" he asked withan appealing note. "Suppose I still love you, my wife? have always lovedyou! You married me.... I've been unfortunate--"

"It isn't that, you know! It isn't the money--the fact that you would havebeggared your mother--not quite that. It's everything--_you!_ Why go intoit? I don't blame you, Larry. But I know you now, and I don't loveyou--that is all. "

"You knew me when you married me. Why did you marry me?"

"Why--why did I marry you?"

Margaret's voice had the habit of growing lower and stiller as passiontouched her heart. "Yes--you may well ask that! Why does a woman see thosethings she wants to see in a man, and is blind to what she might see! ... Oh, why does any woman marry, my husband?"

And in the silence that followed they were both thinking of those days inWashington, eight years before, when they had met. He was acting assecretary to some great man then, and was flashing in the pleasant light ofyouth, popularity, social approbation. He had "won out" against theEnglishman, Hollenby, --why, he had never exactly known. 

Margaret was thinking of that why, as a woman does think at times for longyears afterwards, trying to solve the psychological puzzle of her foolishyouth! Hollenby was certainly the abler man, as well as the more brilliantprospect. And there were others who had loved her, and whom even as a girlshe had wit enough to value.... A girl's choice, when her heart speaks, asthe novelists say, is a curious process, compounded of an infinite numberof subtle elements, --suggestions, traits of character, and above alltemporary atmospheric conditions of mind. It is a marvel if it ever can beresolved into its elements! ... The Englishman--she was almost his--hadlost her because once he had betrayed to the girl the brute. One frightenedglimpse of the animal in his nature had been enough. And in the reboundfrom this chance perception of man as brute, she had listened to LawrencePole, because he seemed to her all that the other was not, --high-souled, poetic, restrained, tender, --all the ideals. With him life would be acommunion of lovely and lovable things. He would secure some place in thediplomatic service abroad, and they would live on the heights, with art, ideas, beauty.... 

"Wasn't I a fool--not to know!" she remarked aloud. She was thinking, withthe tolerance of mature womanhood: 'I could have tamed the brute in theother one. At least he was a man!' "Well, we dream our dreams, sentimentallittle girls that we are! And after a time we open our eyes like kittens onlife. I have opened mine, Larry, --very wide open. There isn't a sentimentalchord in my being that you can twang any longer.... But we can begood-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, orgo over to the country club and find some one to play billiards, --only letme finish what you are pleased to call my rotten reading, --it is soamusing!"

She had descended from the crest of her passion, and could play with thesituation. But her husband, realizing in some small way the significance ofthese words they had exchanged, still probed the ground:--

"If you feel like that, why do you still live with me? Why do you consentto bear my name?"

The pomposity of the last words roused a wicked gleam in his wife's eyes. She looked up from her article again. 

"Perhaps I shan't always 'consent to bear your name, ' Larry. I'm stillthinking, and I haven't thought it all out yet. When I do, I may give upyour name, --go away. Meanwhile I think we get on very well: I make acomfortable home for you; you have your children, --and they are wellbrought up. I have kept you trying to toe the mark, too. Take it all inall, I haven't been a bad wife, --if we are to present references?"

"No, " Larry admitted generously; "I have always said you were too good forme, --too fine. "

"And so, still being a good wife, I have decided to take myself back. " Shedrew her small body together, clasping her arms about the review. "My bodyand my soul, --what is personally most mine. But I will serve you--make youcomfortable. And after a time you won't mind, and you will see that it wasbest. "

"It goes deeper than that, " her husband protested, groping for the ideathat he caught imperfectly; "it means practically that we are living underthe same roof but aren't married!"

"With perfect respectability, Larry, which is more than is always the casewhen a man and a woman live under the same roof, either married orunmarried! ... I am afraid that is it in plain words. But I will do my bestto make it tolerable for you. "

"Perhaps some day you'll find a man, --what then?"

Margaret looked at him for a long minute before replying. 

"And if I should find a Man, God alone knows what would happen!"

Then in reply to the frightened look on her husband's face, she addedlightly:--

"Don't worry, Larry! No immediate scandal. I haven't any one in view, andliving as I do it isn't likely that I shall be tempted by some knightly oridiotic man, who wants to run away with a middle-aged woman and threechildren. I am anchored safely--at any rate as long as dad lives and yourmother, and the children need my good name. Oh!" she broke off suddenly;"don't let us talk any more about it!" ... 

Leaning her head on her hands, she looked into the fire, and murmured toherself as if she had forgotten Larry's presence:--

"God! why are we so blind, so blind, --and our feet caught in the net oflife before we know what is in our souls!"

For she realized that when she said she was middle-aged and anchored, itwas but the surface truth. At thirty, with three children, she was more thewoman, more capable of love, passion, understanding, devotion--more capableof giving herself wholly and greatly to a mate--than any girl could be. Thewell of life still poured its flood into her! Her husband could never knowthat agony of longing, those arms stretched out to--what? When would thistorture of defeated capacity be ended--when had God set the term for her tosuffer!

In the black silence that had fallen between them, Pole betook himself tothe club, as his wife had suggested, for the consolation of billiards andtalk among sensible folk, "who didn't take life so damned hard. " In theintervals of these distractions his mind would revert to what had passedbetween him and his wife that evening. Margaret's last remarks comfortedhim somewhat. Nothing of a scandalous or public demonstration of herfeeling about her marriage was imminent. Nevertheless, his pride was hurt. In spite of the fact that he had suspected for a long time that his wifewas cold, --was not "won, "--he had hitherto travelled along in complacentegotism. "They were a fairly happy couple" or "they geed as well as most, "as he would have expressed it. He had not suspected that Margaret mightfeel the need of more than that. To-night he had heard and understood thetruth, --and it was a blow. Deep down in his masculine heart he felt that hehad been unjustly put in the wrong, somehow. No woman had the right--nowife--to say without cause that having thought better of the marriagebargain she had "taken herself back. " There was something preposterous inthe idea. It was due to the modern fad of a woman's reading all sorts ofstuff, when her mind was inflammable. He recognized that his wife was themore important, the stronger person of the two, --that was the trouble withAmerican women (Larry always made national generalizations when he wishedto express a personal truth)--they knew when they were strong, --felt theiroats. They needed to be "tamed. "

But Larry was aware that he was not fitted for the task of woman-tamer, andmoreover it should have been begun long before this. 

So having won his game of billiards Larry had a drink, which made him evenmore philosophical. "Margaret is all right, " he said to himself. "She wasstrung up to-night, --something made her go loose. But she'll comearound, --she'll never do the other thing!" Yet in spite of a second whiskeyand soda before starting for home, he was not absolutely convinced of thislast statement. 

What makes a man like Larry Pole content to remain the master of the fortmerely in name, when the woman has escaped him in spirit? Why will such menas he live on for years, aye and get children, with women, who do not evenpretend to love them?

 * * * * *

Meanwhile the wife sat there before the fire, her reading forgotten, thinking, thinking. She had said more than she herself knew to be in herheart. For one lives on monotonously, from day to day, unresolved, and thenon occasion there flame forth unsuspected ideas, resolves. For the soul hasnot been idle.... It was true that their marriage was at an end. And it wasnot because of her husband's failures, his follies, --not the moneymistakes. It was himself, --the petty nature he revealed in every act. Forwomen like Margaret Pole can endure vice and folly and disappointment, butnot a petty, trivial, chattering biped that masquerades as Man. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

IN the weeks that followed the accident Margaret Pole saw much of Falkner. The engineer would come up the hill to the old house late in the afternoonafter his work, or ride up on his bicycle in the morning on his way to thedam he was building. Ned--"the Little Man" as Falkner called him--came toexpect this daily visit as one of his invalid rights. Several times Falknerstayed to dinner; but he bored Larry, who called him "a Western bounder, "and grumbled, "He hasn't anything to say for himself. " It was true thatFalkner developed chronic dumbness in Larry's conversational presence. ButMargaret seemed to like the "bounder. " She discovered that he carried inhis pocket a volume of verse. An engineer who went to his job these dayswith a poetry book in his coat pocket was not ordinary, as she remarked toher husband.... 

Falkner's was one of those commonplace figures to be seen by the thousandsin an American city. He dressed neither well nor ill, as if long ago thequestion of appearances had ceased to interest him, and he bought what wasnecessary for decency in the nearest shop. His manners, though brusque, indicated that he had always been within that vague line which marks offthe modern "gentleman. " His face, largely covered by beard and mustache, was pale and thoughtful, and his eyes were tired, usually dull. He wasmerely one of the undistinguished units in the industrial army. Obviouslyhe had not "arrived, " had not pushed into the circle of power. Some lack ofenergy, or natal unfitness for the present environment? Or was he inhibitedby a twist of fate, needing an incentive, a spur?

At any rate the day when Margaret met him, the day when he had brought herboy home in his arms, the book of life seemed closed and fastened for himforever. The fellow-units in the industrial scheme in which he had becomefixed, might say of him, --"Yes, a good fellow, steady, intelligent, butlacks push, --he'll never get there. " Such are the trite summaries of manamong men. Of all the inner territory of the man's soul, which had resolvedhim in its history to what he was, had left him this negative unit of life, his fellows were ignorant, as man must be of man. They saw the Result, andin the rough arithmetic of life results are all that count with mostpeople. 

But the woman--Margaret, --possessing her own hidden territory of soulexistence, had divined more, even in that first tragic moment, when he hadborne her maimed child into the house and laid his burden tenderly on thelounge. As he came and went, telephoning, doing the little that could bedone, she saw more than the commonplace figure, clothed in ready-madegarments; more than the dull, bearded face, the strong, thin hands, therumpled hair. Something out of that vast beyond which this stranger had incommon with her had spoken through the husk, even then.... 

And it had not ended there, as it would have ended, had Falkner been themere "bounder" Larry saw. It was Falkner to whom the mother first told thedoctors' decision about the boy. Certain days impress their atmosphereindelibly; they have being to them like persons, and through years theodor, the light, the sense of their few hours may be recalled as vividly aswhen they were lived. This May day the birds were twittering beside theveranda where Margaret was reading to the Little Man, when Falkner came upthe drive. The long windows of the house were opened to admit the soft air, for it was already summer. Margaret was dressed in a black gown thatrelieved the pallor of her neck and face like the dark background of an oldportrait. As the boy called, "There's big Bob!" she looked up from her bookand smiled. Yet in spite of the placid scene, the welcoming smile, Falknerknew that something had happened, --something of moment. The three talkedand the birds chattered; the haze of the gentle brooding day deepened. Faraway above the feathery treetops, which did their best to hide the littlehouses, there was the blue line of sea, gleaming in the sun. It seemed toFalkner after the long day's work the very spot of Peace, and yet in thewoman's controlled manner there was the something not peace. When Falknerrose to go, Margaret accompanied him to the steps. 

"It's like the South to-day, all this sun and windless air. You have neverbeen in the South? Some days I ache for it. "

In the full light she seemed a slight, worn figure with a blanched face. 

"Bring me my puppy, please, Bob!" the child called from his couch. "He's inthe garden. "

Falkner searched among the flower-beds beneath the veranda and finallycaptured the fat puppy and carried him up to the boy, who hugged him as agirl would a doll, crooning to him. Margaret was still staring into space. 

"What has happened?" Falkner asked. 

She looked at him out of her deep eyes, as if he might read there what hadhappened. They descended the steps and walked away from the house. 

"He hears so quickly, " she explained; "I don't want him to know yet. "

So they kept on down the drive. 

"Dr. Rogers was here this morning.... He brought two other doctors withhim.... There is no longer any doubt--it is paralysis of the lower limbs. He will never walk, they think. "

They kept on down the drive, Falkner looking before him. He knew that thewoman was not crying, would never betray her pain that watery way; but hecould not bear to see the misery of those eyes. 

"My father the Bishop has written me ... Spiritual consolation for Ned'sillness. Should I feel thankful for the chastening to my rebellious spiritadministered to me through my poor boy? Should I thank God for the lash ofthe whip on my stubborn back?"

Falkner smiled. 

"My father the Bishop is a good man, a kind man in his way, yet he neverconsidered my mother--he lived his own life with his own God.... It wouldsurprise him if he knew what I thought about God, --_his_ God, at least. "... 

Falkner looked at her at last, and they stopped. Afterwards he knew that healready loved Margaret Pole. He, too, had divined that the woman, strickenthrough her child, was essentially alone in the world, and in her hungryeyes lay the story of the same dreary road over which he had passed. Andthese two, defeated ones in the riotous world of circumstance, silently, instinctively held out hands across the void and looked at each other withclosed lips. 

Among the trees the golden haze deepened, and the birds sang. Down below inthe village sounded the deep throbs of an engine: the evening train hadcome from the city. It was the only disturbing note in the peace, thesilence. The old house had caught the full western sun, and its dull redbricks glowed. On the veranda the small boy was still caressing the puppy. 

"Mother!" a thin voice sounded. Margaret started. 

"Good-by, " Falkner said. "I shall come to-morrow. "

At the gate he met Pole, lightly swinging a neat green bag, his gloves inhis hand. Larry stopped to talk, but Falkner, with a short, "Pleasantafternoon, " kept on. Somehow the sight of Pole made the thing he had justlearned all the worse. 

Thus it happened that in the space of a few weeks Margaret knew Falknermore intimately than Isabelle had ever known him or ever could know him. Two beings meeting in this illusive, glimmering world of ours may come to aready knowledge of each other, as two travellers on a dark road, who havemade the greater part of the stormy journey alone. It would be difficult torecord the growth of that inner intimacy, --so much happening in wordlessmoments or so much being bodied forth in little words that would be asmeaningless as newspaper print. But these weeks of the child's invalidism, there was growing within them another life that no one shared or would haveunderstood. When Larry observed, "That bounder is always here, " Margaretdid not seem to hear. Already the food that the "bounder" had given herparched self was too precious to lose. She had begun to live again thestifled memories, the life laid away, --to talk of her girlhood, of herVirginia hills, her people. 

And Falkner had told her something of those earlier years in the Rockies, when he had lived in the world of open spaces and felt the thrill of life, but never a word of what had passed since he had left the canons and thepeaks. Sometimes these days there was a gleam in his dark eyes, a smile onthe bearded lips that indicated the reopening of the closed book once more. His fellow-units in the industrial world might not see it; but Margaretfelt it. Here was a human being pressed into the service of the machine andheld there, at pay, powerless to extract himself, sacrificed. And she sawwhat there was beneath the mistake; she felt the pioneer blood, like herown, close to the earth in its broad spaces, living under the sky in a newland. She saw the man that should be, that once was, that must be again!And in this world of their other selves, which had been denied them, thesetwo touched hands. They needed little explanation. 

Rarely Margaret spoke of her present life, and then with irony, as if aninner and unsentimental honesty compelled utterance: "You see, " sheremarked once when her husband called her, "we dress for dinner becausewhen we started in New York we belonged to the dining-out class. If wedidn't keep up the habit, we should lose our self-respect.... My neck isthin and I don't look well in evening dress. But that makes no matter.... We have prayers on Sunday morning; religion is part of the substantiallife. "... 

Conny had said once, hearing Margaret rail like this: "She ought to make abetter bluff, or get out, --not guy old Larry like that; it isn't decent, embarrasses one so. You can't guy him, too. "... 

But Falkner understood how the acid of her daily life eating into her hadtouched, at these times, a sensitive nerve and compelled suchself-revelations. 

 * * * * *

It was Falkner who first spoke to the Poles about Dr. Renault. In some wayhe had heard of the surgeon and learned of the wonderful things he haddone. 

"Anyhow it is worth while seeing him. It is best to try everything. "

"Yes, " Margaret assented quickly; "I shall not give up--never!"

Through a doctor whom he knew Falkner arranged the visit to the surgeon, who was difficult of access. And he went in the evening after the visit tolearn the result. 

"He thinks there is a chance!" and Margaret added more slowly: "It is agreat risk. I supposed it must be so. "

"You will take it?"

"I think, " she said slowly, "that Ned would want me to. You see he is likeme. It may accomplish nothing, Dr. Renault said. It may be partiallysuccessful.... Or it may be--fatal. He was very kind, --spent all theafternoon here. I liked him immensely; he was so direct. '

"When will it be?"

"Next week. "

The operation took place, and was not fatal. "Now we shall have to wait, "the surgeon said to the mother, --"and hope! It will be months before weshall know finally what is the result. "

"I shall wait and hope!" Margaret replied to him. Renault, who had a chordin common with this Southern woman, stroked her hand gently as he left. "Better take the little chap away somewhere and get a change yourself, " hesaid. 

It was a still, hot night of late June, the last time that Falkner climbedthe hill to the old place. The summer, long delayed, had burst these lastdays with scorching fury. Margaret was to leave on the morrow for Bedmouth, where she would spend the summer with old Mrs. Pole. She was lying on theveranda couch. She smiled as Falkner drew a chair to her side, the franksmile from the deep blue eyes, that she gave only to her children and tohim, and there was a joyous note in her voice:--

"At last there is a sign. I have a little more hope now!"

She told him of the first faint indications of life in the still limbs ofthe child. 

"It will be months before we can tell really. But tonight I have stronghope!"

"What we need most in life is hope, " he mused. "It keeps the thing going. "

"As long as a man can work, he has hope, " she replied stoutly. 

"I suppose so, --at least he must think so. "

Margaret knew that the work the engineer was engaged on was nearlyfinished. It might last at the most another six weeks, and he did not knowwhere he should go then; but it was altogether unlikely that the fall wouldfind him at Dudley Farms. 

"I was in the city to-day, " he said after a time, "and in the company'soffice I ran across my old chief. He's going to Panama in the fall. "... 

Margaret waited with strange expectancy for what Falkner might say next. She rarely asked questions, sought directly to know. She had the power ofpatience, and an unconscious belief that life shaped itself largely withoutthe help of speech. Here and there in the drama of events the spoken wordmight be called for--but rarely. 

"They have interesting problems down there, " Falkner continued; "it isreally big work, you know. A man might do something worth while. But it isa hole!"

She still waited, and what she expected came:--

"He asked me to go with him, --promised me charge of one of the dams, my ownwork, --it is the biggest thing that ever came my way. "

And then the word fell from her almost without her will:--

"You must go! _Must_ go!"

"Yes, " he mused on; "I thought so. There was a time when it would have mademe crazy, such a chance.... It's odd after all these years, when I thoughtI was dead--"

"Don't say dead!"

"Well, rutted deep in the mire, then, --that this should happen. "

She had said "go, " with all the truth of her nature. It was the thing forhim to do. But she did not have the strength to say another word. In themoment she had seen with blinding clearness all that this man meant in herlittle firmament. 'This was a Man!' She knew him. She loved him! yes, sheloved him, thank God! And now he must go out of her life as suddenly as hehad come into it, --must leave her alone, stranded as before in the dark. 

"It isn't so easy to decide, " Falkner continued. "There isn't much money init, --not for the under men, you know. "

"What difference does that make!" she flashed. 

"Not to me, " he explained, and there was a pause. "But I have my wife andchild to think of. I need all the money I can earn. "

It was the first time any reference had been made to his family. After atime Margaret said:--

"But they pay fair salaries, and any woman would rather be pinched and haveher husband in the front ranks--" And then she hesitated, something inFalkner's eyes troubling her. 

"I shall not decide just yet.... The offer has stirred my blood, --I feelthat I have some youth left!"

They said little more. Margaret walked with him down the avenue. In hersummer dress she looked wasted, infinitely fragile. 

"This is not good-by, " he said at last. "I shall go down the coast in aboat for a week, as I used to do when I was a boy, and my sister has acottage at Lancaster. That is not far from Bedmouth?"

"No, it isn't far, " she answered softly. 

They paused and then walked back, as if all was not said yet. 

"There is another reason, " Falkner exclaimed abruptly, "why I did not wishto go--and you must know it. "

She raised her head and looked at him, murmuring, --

"Yes! I know it! ... But _nothing_ should keep you here. "

"No, not keep me.... But there is something infinitely precious to lose bygoing.... You have made me live again, Margaret. I was dead, dead, --a deadsoul. "

"We were both dead ... And now we live!"

"It were better not said, perhaps--"

"No!" she interrupted passionately. "It ought to be said! Why not?"

"There can be nothing for us, " he muttered dully. 

"No!" and her hands touched his. "Don't say that! We are both in theworld, --don't you see?"

His face drew near to hers, they kissed, and she clung to him for themoment, then whispered: "Now go! You must live, live, --live greatly, --forus both!"

Margaret fled to her room, knelt down beside the boy's bed, with claspedhands, her eyes shining down on the sleeping child, a smile on her face. 

CHAPTER XXXV

Cornelia Woodyard's expression was not pleasant when she was deliberatingor in perplexity. Her broad brow wrinkled, and her mouth drew down at thecorners, adding a number of years to her face. She did not allow thiscondition of perplexity to appear in public, reserving her "heavythinking, " as Tom Cairy called these moments, for the early morning hoursof privacy. This languid spring day while Conny turned over her mail thatlay strewn in disorder on her bed, she apparently had one of her worst fitsof dubitation. She poked about in the mass of letters, bills, andnewspapers until she found the sheet she was looking for, --it was in herhusband's handwriting, --reread it, the scowl deepening, pushed it backthoughtfully into its envelope, and rang for the maid that looked after herpersonally as well as performed other offices in the well-organizedhousehold. When Conny emerged at the end of the hour in street costume, thefrown had disappeared, but her fair face wore a preoccupied air. 

"Hello, Tom!" she said wanly to Cairy, who was dawdling over the paper inthe library. "How is it out?"

"Warm, --a perfect day!" Cairy replied, smiling at her and jumping to hisfeet. 

"Is the cab there?"

"Yes, --shall we start?"

"I can't go to-day, Tom, --something has turned up. "

"Something has turned up?" he queried. He was an expert in Conny's moods, but he had seen little of this mood lately. 

"Business, " Conny explained shortly. "Leave the cab, please. I may wantit.... No, " she added as Cairy came towards her with a question on hislips. "I can't bother to explain, --but it's important. We must give up ourday. "

She turned to her desk, and then remarked as if she felt Cairy'sdisappointment: "You can come in after dinner if you like, Tom! We can havethe evening, perhaps. "

He looked at her questioningly, as if he would insist on an explanation. But Conny was not one of whom even a lover would demand explanations whenshe was in this mood. 

"We can't always play, Tommy!" she sighed. 

But after he had left the room she called him back. 

"You didn't kiss me, " she said sweetly. "You may if you like, just once.... There!" she raised her head and smiled at Cairy, with that satisfactionwhich emotional moments brought to her. "You had better get to work, too. You can't have been of much use to Gossom lately. " And she settled herselfat her desk with the telephone book. As she called the hotel where SenatorThomas usually stayed when he was in the city, the scowl returned to herbrow. Her mind had already begun to grapple with the problems suggested byPercy's letter of the morning. But by the time she had succeeded in gettingthe Senator, her voice was gentle and sweet.... 

... "Yes, at luncheon, --that will be very nice!" And she hung up thereceiver with an air of swift accomplishment. 

 * * * * *

It is not necessary to go into what had passed between Cornelia Woodyardand Cairy in the weeks that had elapsed since that day when Conny had beenso anxious to get back to New York from the Poles'. It would gratify merelya vulgar curiosity. Suffice it to say that never before had Conny been sopleased with life or her own competent handling of her affairs in it. Up tothis morning she felt that she had admirably fulfilled all claims upon heras well as satisfied herself. Things had seemed "to come her way" duringthis period. The troublesome matter before the Commission that had rousedher husband's conscience and fighting blood had gone over for the time. TheCommission had reserved its decision, and the newspapers had gone off on anumber of other scents of wrong-doing that seemed more odorously promising. Percy's conscience had returned to its normal unsuspecting state, and hehad been absorbed to an unwonted degree in private business of one sort oranother. 

Meantime the Senator and Cornelia had had a number of little talks. TheSenator had advised her about the reinvestment of her money, and all hersmall fortune was now placed in certain stocks and bonds of a paper companythat "had great prospects in the near future, " as the Senatorconservatively phrased it. Percy, naturally, had known about this, andthough he was slightly troubled by the growing intimacy with the Senator, he was also flattered and trusted his wife's judgment. "A shrewd businesshead, " the Senator said of Conny, and the Senator ought to know. "It is aseasy to do business with her as with a man. " Which did not mean thatCornelia Woodyard had sold her husband to the Senator, --nothing as crude asthat, but merely that she "knew the values" of this life. 

The Senator and Conny often talked of Percy, the promise he had shown, hisability and popularity among all kinds of men. "If he steers right now, "the Senator had said to his wife, "there is a great future ahead ofWoodyard, and"--with a pleasant glance at Conny--"I have no doubt he willavoid false steps. " The Senator thought that Congress would be a mistake. So did Conny. "It takes luck or genius to survive the lower house, " theSenator said. They had talked of something in diplomacy, and now that thestocks and bonds of the paper-mill were to be so profitable, they couldafford to consider diplomacy. Moreover, the amiable Senator, who knew howto "keep in" with an aggressively moral administration at Washingtonwithout altogether giving up the pleasing habit of "good things, " promisedto have Woodyard in mind "for the proper place. "

So Conny had dreamed her little dream, which among many other thingsincluded the splendor of a career in some European capital, where Conny hadno doubt that she could properly shine, and she felt proud that she coulddo so much for Percy. The world, this one at any rate, was for theable, --those who knew what to take from the table and how to take it. Shewas of those who had the instinct and the power. Then Percy's letter:--

... "Princhard came up to see me yesterday. From the facts he gave me Ihave no doubt at all what is the inner meaning of the Water Power bill. Ishall get after Dillon [the chairman of the Commission] and find out whathe means by delaying matters as he has.... It looks also as though theSenator had some connection with this steal.... I am sorrier than I can saythat we have been so intimate with him, and that you followed his adviceabout your money. I may be down Sunday, and we will talk it over. Perhapsit is not too late to withdraw from that investment. It will make nodifference, however, in my action here. " ... 

Simply according to Conny's crisp version, "Percy has flown the trackagain!"

 * * * * *

After a pleasant little luncheon with the Senator, Conny sent a telegram toher husband that she would meet him at the station on the arrival of acertain train from Albany that evening, adding the one word, "urgent, "which was a code word between them. Then she telephoned the office of _ThePeople's_, but Cairy was not there, and he had not returned when later inthe afternoon she telephoned again. 

"Well, " she mused, a troubled expression on her face, "perhaps it is justas well, --Tom might not be easy to manage. He's more exacting than Percyabout some things. " So while the cab was waiting to take her to thestation, she sat down at her desk and wrote a note, --a brief little note:--

"DEAR TOM: I am just starting for the station to meet Percy. Something veryimportant has come up, which for the present must change things for usall.... You know that we agreed the one thing we could not do would be tolet our feelings interfere with our duties--to any one.... I don't knowwhen I can see you. But I will let you know soon. Good-by. C. "

"Give this to Mr. Cairy when he calls and tell him not to wait, " she saidto the maid who opened the door for her. Conny did not believe in "writingfoolish things to men, " and her letter of farewell had the brevity oftelegraphic despatch. Nevertheless she sank into the corner of the cabwearily and closed her eyes on the brilliant street, which usually amusedher as it would divert a child. "He'll know sometime!" she said to herself. "He'll understand or have to get along without understanding!" and her lipsdrew together. It was a different world to-night from that of the daybefore; but unhappy as she was she had a subtle satisfaction in herwillingness and her ability to meet it whatever side it turned towards her. 

The train was a halfhour late, and as she paced the court slowly, sherealized that Cairy had come to the house, --he was always prompt thesedays, --had received the note, and was walking away, reading it, --thinkingwhat of her? Her lips tightened a trifle, as she glanced at the clock. "Hewill go to Isabella's, " she said to herself. "He likes Isabelle. " She knewCairy well enough to feel that the Southerner could not long endure alonely world. And Conny had a tolerant nature; she did not despise him forgoing where he could find amusement and comfort; nor did she think his loveless worth having. But she bit her lip as she repeated, "He will go toIsabelle. " If Percy wanted to know the extent of his wife's devotion totheir married life, their common interests, he should have seen her at thismoment. As the train drew in, she had already thought, "But he will comeback--when it is possible. "

She met her husband with a frank smile. 

"You'll have to take me somewhere to dinner, " she drawled. "There isn't anyat home, --besides I want to talk at once. Glad to see me?"

When they were finally by themselves in a small private room of arestaurant where Conny loved to go with her husband, --"because it seems sonaughty, "--she said in answer to his look of inquiry: "Percy, I want you totake me away--to Europe, just for a few weeks!"

Woodyard's face reflected surprise and concern. 

"But, Con!" he stammered. 

"Please, Percy!" She put her hand softly on his arm. "No matter what is inthe way, --only for a few weeks!" and her eyes filled with tears, quitegenuine tears, which dropped slowly to her pale face. "Percy, " shemurmured, "don't you love me any longer?"... 

CHAPTER XXXVI

It was perfectly true, as Conny surmised, that Cairy went to Isabelle. Butnot that evening--the blow was too hard and too little expected--nor on thewhole more frequently than he had been in the habit of going during thewinter. Isabelle interested him, --"her problem, " as he called it; that is, given her husband and her circumstances, how she would settle herself intoNew York, --how far she might go there. It flattered him also to serve asintellectual and aesthetic mentor to an attractive, untrained woman, whofrankly liked him and bowed to his opinion. It was Cairy, through Isabelle, much more than Lane, who decided on the house in that up-town cross street, on the "right" side of the Park, which the Lanes finally bought. It was inan excellent neighborhood, "just around the corner" from a number of houseswhere well-known people lived. In the same block the Gossoms hadestablished themselves, on the profits of _The People's_, and only twodoors away, on the same side of the street, a successful novelist hadhoused himself behind what looked like a Venetian facade. Close by were theRogerses, --he was a fashionable physician; the Hillary Peytons; theDentons, --all people, according to Cairy, "one might know. "

When Isabelle came to look more closely into this matter of settlingherself in the city, she regretted the Colonel's illiberal will. They mighteasily have had a house nearer "the Avenue, " instead of belonging to thepolite poor-rich class two blocks east. Nevertheless, she tried to comfortherself by the thought that even with the Colonel's millions at theirdisposal they would have been "little people" in the New York scale ofmeans. And the other thing, the "interesting, " "right" society was muchbetter worth while. "You make your own life, --it isn't made for you, " Cairysaid. 

Isabelle was very busy these days. Thanks to the Potts regime, she wasfeeling almost well generally, and when she "went down, " Dr. Potts wasalways there with the right drug to pull her up to the level. So sheplunged into the question of altering the house, furnishing it, and gettingit ready for the autumn. Her mother and John could not understand herperplexity about furnishing. What with the contents of two houses on hand, it seemed incomprehensible that the new home should demand a clean sweep. But Isabelle realized the solid atrocity of the Torso establishment and ofthe St. Louis one as well. She was determined that this time she should beright. With Cairy for guide and adviser she took to visiting the oldfurniture shops, selecting piece by piece what was to go into the newhouse. She was planning, also, to make that deferred trip to Europe to seeher brother, and she should complete her selection over there, althoughCairy warned her that everything she was likely to buy in Europe these dayswould be "fake. " Once launched on the sea of household art, she foundherself in a torturing maze. What was "right" seemed to alter withmarvellous rapidity; the subject, she soon realized, demanded a culture, anexperience that she had never suspected. Then there was the matter of theFarm at Grafton, which must be altered. The architect, who was making overthe New York house, had visited Grafton and had ideas as to what could bedone with the rambling old house without removing it bodily. "Tear down thebarn--throw out a beautiful room here--terrace it--a formal garden there, "etc. In the blue prints the old place was marvellously transformed. 

"Aren't you doing too much, all at once?" Lane remonstrated in the mild wayof husbands who have experienced nervous prostration with their wives. 

"Oh, no; it interests me so! Dr. Potts thinks I should keep occupiedreasonably, with things that really interest me.... Besides I am onlydirecting it all, you know. "

And glad to see her once more satisfied, eager, he went his way to hiswork, which demanded quite all his large energy. After all, women had to dojust about so much, and find their limit themselves. 

Isabelle had learned to "look after herself, " as she phrased it, by whichshe meant exercise, baths, massage, days off when she ran down to Lakewood, electricity, --all the physical devices for keeping a nervous people incondition. It is a science, and it takes time, --but it is a duty, asIsabelle reflected. Then there was the little girl. She was four now, andthough the child was almost never on her hands, thanks to the excellentMiss Butts, Molly, as they called her, had her place in her mother's busythoughts: what was the best regimen, whether she ought to have a French ora German governess next year, how she should dress, and in the distance theright school to be selected. Isabelle meant to do her best for the littlegirl, and looked back on her own bringing up--even the St. Mary's part ofit--as distressingly haphazard, and limiting. Her daughter should be fitted"to make the most of life, " which was what Isabelle felt that she herselfwas now beginning to do. 

So Isabelle was occupied, as she believed profitably, spending her newenergy wisely, and though she was getting worn, it was only a month to thedate she had set for sailing. Vickers had promised to meet her at Genoa andtake her into the Dolomites and then to San Moritz, where she could rest. As her life filled up, she saw less of her husband than ever, for he, too, was busy, "with that railroad thing, " as she called the great Atlantic andPacific. She made him buy a horse and ride in the Park afternoons when hecould get the time, because he was growing too heavy. He had developedlaziness socially, liked to go to some restaurant for dinner with chancefriends that were drifting continually through New York, and afterwards tothe theatre, --"to see something lively, " as he put it, preferably Weber andFields', or Broadway opera. Isabelle felt that this was not the rightthing, and boring, too; but it would all be changed when they were"settled. " Meantime she went out more or less by herself, as the wives ofbusy men have to do. 

"It is so much better not to bring a yawning husband home at midnight, " shelaughed to Cairy on one of these occasions when she had given him a seatdown town in her cab. "By the way, you haven't spoken of Connylately, --don't you see her any more?"

Isabelle still had her girlish habit of asking indiscreet, impertinentquestions. She carried them off with a lively good nature, but theyirritated Cairy occasionally. 

"I have been busy with my play, " he replied shortly. 

As a matter of fact he had been attacked by one of those fits of intenseoccupation which came upon him in the intervals of his devotions. At suchtimes he worked to better effect, with a kind of abandoned fury, than whenhis thoughts and feelings were engaged, as if to make up to his muse forhis periods of neglect. The experience, he philosophized, which had storeditself, was now finding vent, --the spiritual travail as well as theknowledge of life. A man, an artist, had but one real passion, he toldIsabelle, --and that was his work. Everything else was mere fertilizer orwaste. Since the night that Conny had turned him from the door, he hadcompleted his new play, which had been hanging fire all winter, and he wasconvinced it was his best. "Yes, a man's work, no matter what it may be, isGod's solace for living. " In response to which Isabelle mischievouslyremarked:--

"So you and Conny really have had a tiff? I must get her to tell me aboutit. "

"Do you think she would tell you the truth?"

"No. "

Isabelle, in spite of Cairy's protestations about his work, was gratifiedwith her discovery, as she called it. She had decided that Conny was "a badinfluence" on the Southerner; that Cairy was simple and ingenuous, --"reallya nice boy, " so she told her husband. Just what evil Conny had done toCairy Isabelle could not say, ending always with the phrase, "but I don'ttrust her, " or "she is so selfish. " She had made these comments to MargaretPole, and Margaret had answered with one of her enigmatic smiles and theremark:--

"Conny's no more selfish than most of us women, --only her methods are moredirect--and successful. "

"That is cynical, " Isabelle retorted. "Most of us women are not selfish; Iam not!"

And in her childlike way she asked her husband that very night:--

"John, do you think I am selfish?"

John answered this large question with a laugh and a pleasant compliment. 

"I suppose Margaret means that I don't go in for charities, like that Mrs. Knop of the Relief and Aid, or for her old Consumers' League. Well, I hadenough of that sort of thing in St. Louis. And I don't believe it does anygood; it is better to give money to those who know how to spend it.... Haveyou any poor relatives we could be good to, John? ... Any cousins thatought to be sent to college, any old aunts pining for a trip toCalifornia?"

"Lots of 'em, I suppose, " her husband responded amiably. "They turn upevery now and then, and I do what I can for them. I believe I am sendingtwo young women to college to fit themselves for teaching. "

Lane was generous, though he had the successful man's suspicion of allthose who wanted help. He had no more formulated ideas about doing forothers than his wife had. But when anything appealed to him, he gave andhad a comfortable sense that he was helping things along. 

Isabelle, in spite of the disquiet caused by Margaret's statement, feltconvinced that she was doing her duty in life broadly, "in that stationwhere Providence had called her. " 'She was sure that she was a good wife, agood daughter, a good mother. And now she meant to be more than thesehumdrum things, --she meant to be Somebody, she meant to live! ... 

When she found time to call at the Woodyards', she saw that the house wasclosed, and the caretaker, who was routed out with difficulty, informed herthat the master and mistress had sailed for Europe the week before. 

'Very sudden, ' mused Isabelle. 'I don't see how Percy could get away. '

Half the houses on the neighboring square were closed already, however, andshe thought as she drove up town that it was time for her to be going. Thecity was becoming hot and dusty, and she was rather tired of it, too. Mrs. Price was to open the Farm for the summer and have Miss Butts and thelittle girl with her. John promised "to run over and get her" in September, if he could find time. Her little world was all arranged for, she reflectedcomplacently. John would stay at the hotel and go up to Grafton overSundays, and he had joined a club. Yes, the Lanes were shaking into placein New York. 

Cairy sent her some roses when she sailed and was in the mob at the pier tobid her good-by. 

"Perhaps I shall be over myself later on, " he said, "to see if I can placethe play. "

"Oh, do!" Isabelle exclaimed. "And we'll buy things. I am going to ruinJohn. "

Lane smiled placidly, as one not easily ruined. When the visitors weredriven down the gangway, Isabelle called to Cairy:--

"Come on and go back in the tug with John!"

So Cairy limped back. Isabelle was nervous and tired, and now that she wasactually on the steamer felt sad at seeing accustomed people and thingsabout to slip away. She wanted to hold on to them as long as possible. Presently the hulking steamer was pulled out into the stream and headed forthe sea. It was a hot June morning and through the haze the great buildingstowered loftily. The long city raised a jagged sky-line of human immensity, and the harbor swarmed with craft, --car ferries, and sailing vesselsdropping down stream carefully to take the sea breeze, steamers lined withblack figures, screeching tugs, and occasionally a gleaming yacht. Thethree stood together on the deck looking at the scene. 

"It always gives me the same old thrill, " Cairy said. "Coming or going, itmakes no difference, --it is the biggest fact in the modern world. "

"I love it!" murmured Isabelle, her eyes fastened on the serried wallsabout the end of the island. "I shall never forget when I saw it as achild, the first time. It was mystery, like a story-book then, and it hasbeen the same ever since. "

Lane said nothing, but watched the city with smiling lips. To him the squatcar ferries, the lighters, the dirty tramp steamers, the railroad yardsacross the river, as well as the lofty buildings of the long city--all theteeming life here at the mouth of the country--meant Traffic, theintercourse of men. And he, too, loved the great roaring city. He looked atit with a vista that reached from the Iowa town where he had first"railroaded it, " up through the intervening steps at St. Louis and Torso, to his niche in the largest of these buildings, --all the busy years whichhe had spent dealing with men. 

Isabelle touched his arm. 

"I wish you were coming, too, John, " she said as the breeze struck in fromthe open sea. "Do you remember how we talked of going over when we were inTorso?"

What a stretch of time there was between those first years of marriage andto-day! She would never have considered in the Torso days that she couldsail off like this alone with a maid and leave her husband behind. 

"Oh, it will be only a few weeks, --you'll enjoy yourself, " he replied. Hehad been very good about her going over to join Vickers, made no objectionsto it this time. They were both growing more tolerant, as they grew olderand saw more of life. 

"What is in the paper?" she asked idly, as her husband rolled it up. 

"There's a dirty roast on your friend, Percy Woodyard, --nothing else!"

"See, that must be the tug!" exclaimed Isabelle, pushing up her veil tokiss her husband. "Good-by--I wish you were going, too--I shall miss youso--be sure you exercise and keep thin!"... 

She watched the two men climb down into the bobbing tug and take placesbeside the pilot room, --her tall, square-shouldered husband, and theslighter man, leaning on a cane, both looking up at her with smiles. Johnwaved his paper at her, --the one that had the "roast" about Percy Woodyard. She had meant to read that, --she might see the Woodyards in Paris. Then thetug moved off, both men still waving to her. She hurried to the rear deckto get a last look, sentimental forlornness at leaving her husband comingover her afresh. As she gazed back at the retreating tug there was also inher heart a warm feeling for Cairy. "Poor Tom!" she murmured withoutknowing why. 

On this great ship, among the thousand or more first-class passengers, there were a goodly number of women like her, leaving home and husband fora foreign trip. After all, as she had often said, it was a good idea forhusbands and wives to have vacations from each other. There was no realreason why two people should stick together in an endless daily intimacybecause they were married.... 

Thus the great city--the city of her ambitions--sank mistily on thehorizon. 

PART FOUR

CHAPTER XXXVII

Mrs. Pole's house stood on the outskirts of the old town of Bedmouth, facing the narrow road that ran eastward to the Point. In the days of Mrs. Pole's father the ships passing to and from Bedmouth on the river could beseen from the front windows. Now the wires of a trolley road disfigured theold street and cheap wooden houses cut off the view of the river. In therear there was a small garden, sloping down to an inlet of the sea, fromwhich could be seen Bedmouth-way the slender spires of two churches thatrose among the drooping branches of the elms, and seaward the squat outlineof a great summer hotel, bedecked with many flags. In the black mould ofthe old garden grew tall syringa bushes, lilacs, pampas grass, and a fewtiger lilies, and over the crumbling brick walls hung dusty leaves ofgrapevines. When the gate at the bottom of the garden was open, there was aview of the inlet, bordered with marsh grass, and farther away a segment ofthe open sea, with the lighthouse on Goose Rock. 

Here the Judge's wife had come to live when her husband died, forsakingWashington, which had grown "too busy for an old woman. " ... 

At the end of the garden, which was shaded by the high wall, Margaret sat, an uncut book on her knees, her eyes resting on the green marsh to be seenthrough the open door. Near by Ned in his little invalid chair was pickingthe mortar from the brick wall with a nail he had been able to reach. Thetwo were often alone like this for hours, silent. 

"Mother, " the child said at last, as Margaret took up the book. 

"What is it, Ned?"

"Must I sit like this always, --forever and ever?"

"I hope not, dear. You must remember Dr. Renault said it would takepatience. "

"But I have been patient. "

"Yes, I know, dear!"

"If I didn't get any better, should I have to sit like this always?" Atlast the question which she feared had come, the child's first doubt. Ithad been uncertain, the recovery of the lost power; at times it seemed asif there were no progress. The mother answered in her slow, deep voice:--

"Yes, dear; you would have to be patient always. But we are going to hope!"

"Mother, " the child persisted, "why does it have to be so?"

And the mother answered steadily:--

"I don't know, my boy. Nobody knows why. "

Ned resumed his scratching at the wall, pondering this mystery of aninexplicable world. Presently there was a sound of oars beyond the wall, and the child exclaimed:--

"There's Big Bob! He said he'd take me for a row. "

Falkner carried off the Little Man for his promised boat ride, leavingMargaret to cut the leaves of her book and to think. It was the weekbefore, the end of August, that Falkner had put into Bedmouth in his smallsloop. He was staying with his sister at Lancaster, only a short walk onthe other side of the Point. After a few days more at the most he wouldhave to turn back southwards, and then? ... She threw down her book andpaced slowly back and forth along the garden walk. As the sun sank low, hermother-in-law appeared, a frail little lady, who looked gently intoMargaret's face. 

"I am afraid you feel the heat, Margaret. It has been a very hot day. "

"Is it hot?" Margaret asked vaguely, shading her eyes with her hand to lookout over the marsh. 

There was the sound of oars and a child's laugh, loud and careless, justbeyond the wall. "Look out!" Ned cried. 

"There, you've wet your feet!" The two women smiled. That boyish laugh wasrare these days. 

When the grandmother wheeled Ned into the house for his supper, Margaretand Falkner strolled out of the garden beside the marsh to a rocky knollthat jutted into the sea. They seated themselves under a scrawny pine whoseroots were bathed by the incoming tide, and watched the twilight stillnesssteal across the marshes and the sea. There was no air and yet the shipsout by Goose Island passed across the horizon, sails full set, as thoughmoved by an unseen hand. 

They knew each other so well! And yet in silent times like these theirintimacy seemed always to go deeper, to reveal without the aid of speechnew levels of understanding. 

"I had a letter this morning from Marvin, " Falkner remarked at last. 

Margaret scooped up a handful of pebbles and let them fall through her thinfingers, waiting for the expected words. 

"It is settled. We sail from New York the tenth. "

"The tenth?"

"Yes, ... So I must go back soon and get ready. "

The decision about Panama had been in the balance when Falkner left NewYork, she knew. Another opportunity of work in the States had comemeanwhile; the decision had not been easy to make. When Falkner had writtenhis wife, Bessie had replied: "You must do what seems best to you, as youhave always done in the past.... Of course I cannot take the children toPanama. " And when Falkner had written of the other work nearer home, Bessiesaid: "I don't care to make another move and settle in a new place.... Weseem to get on better like this. Go to Panama if you want to, and we willsee when you get back. " So he had debated the matter with himself all theway up the coast.... 

"When must you leave?"

"To-morrow, " he answered slowly, and again they were silent. 

It was as she wished, as she had urged. The new work would reopen the man'sambition, and that _must_ be. Where a man's work was concerned, nothing--nothing surely of any woman--should intervene. That was herfeeling. No woman's pining or longing to fetter the man: clear the decksfor action!

"To-morrow!" she murmured. She was smiling bravely, a smile that belied thetenseness within. Falkner picked the long spines from a pine branch, andarranged them methodically one by one in a row. They were not all alike, differing in minute characteristics of size and length and color. Nature ather wholesale task of turning out these millions of needles varied theproduct infinitely. And so with human beings!

They two were at peace together, their inner hunger appeased, with asustaining content in life neither had ever known before. When they weretogether in this intimate silence, their spirits were freed from allbondage, free to rise, to leap upwards out of the encircling abysm ofthings. And this state of perfect meeting--spiritual equilibrium--mustend.... 

"To-morrow?" she repeated, raising her eyes and gazing far out to thesunlit sea. And her heart was saying, "Tomorrow, and to-morrow, and thedays thereafter, --and all empty of this!"

"It is best so, " he said. "It could not go on like this!"

"No! We are human, after all!" and smiling wanly she rose to return to thehouse. When they reached his boat, Falkner took her hand, --a hand withfinely tapering fingers, broad in the palm and oval, --a woman's hand, firmto hold, gentle to caress. The fingers tightened about his slowly. Helooked into the blue eyes; they were dry and shining. And in those shiningeyes he read the same unspoken words of revolt that rose within hisheart, --'Why thus too late! too late! Why has life declared itself in allits meaning--too late? Why were we caught by the mistakes of halfknowledge, and then receive the revelation?' The futile questions of humanhearts. 

"You will come to-night--after dinner?" Margaret asked. "Bring the boat. Wewill go to Lawlor's Cove. I want to get away--from everything!"

As she mounted the garden steps to the house, she heard the whirr of amotor in the street. It stopped in front of the house, and as Margaretwaited she heard Mrs. Hillyer's thin voice: "I am so sorry! Please tellMrs. Pole that I came over from Lancaster to get her for dinner. " Presentlythe motor whirled away in the direction of the great hotel, a cloud of dustfollowing in its wake. Margaret stood for a moment watching the cardisappear into the distance, thankful that she had escaped Mrs. Hillyer andher new motor just now.... The sun, sinking into the Bedmouth elms acrossthe green marshes, fell full and golden upon her face. It was still and hotand brooding, this sunset hour, like the silent reaches of her heart. Butslowly a smile broke from her lips, and she raised her arms to the light. It had touched her, the Sun God! It had burned her with its heat, its life. She knew! And she was glad. Nothing could take its fire wholly from her. 

"To-night!" she murmured to herself. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

She had written him in that fierce honesty which spoke in every penstrokeon the paper:--

... "Yes, I love you! I am proud when I say it over to myself, when I seeit written here. I want you to know just how it is with me and myhusband.... So our marriage was a mistake, one of the millions women makeout of the girlish guess. Ignorance, blind ignorance of self and life! Andmy husband knows how it is between us. He knows that when the man comes tome whom I can love, I shall love him.... The man has come.... When it istime, I shall go to him and tell him honestly what has happened. I hate thelittle, lying women, --those who are afraid. I am not afraid! But these lasthours I will have my heart's joy to myself, --we will draw a circle aboutourselves. "... 

"As I kiss you, I love you with that spirit you have given me, " she said toFalkner. "That is right, and this is right. You have given me life, andthus I give it back to you. "... 

When they were alone beside the sea this last evening, Margaret said:"Dearest, you must know as I know, that nothing which we have had togetheris sin. I would not yield even to you where I felt the right. To my fatherthe Bishop, this would be Sin. To that dear old lady over there inBedmouth, who suffered all her life from a bullying husband and from aselfish son, --and who is now too broken to think for herself, --it would beSin, anything not suffering would be Sin! But I know!" She raised her headproudly from his arms. "I know within me that this is the rightest thing inall my life. When it came, I was sure that I should take it, and that itwould save me from worse than death.... It came ... And we were strongenough to take it, thank God!"

On the other side of the shingle rampart, which rose sheer behind them, theslow swells of the sea fell at distant intervals with solemn resonance, theonly sound that broke the stillness of the night. This surge rising andfalling on the land from out the great body of the sea was like a deepvoice in the woman's soul, echoing her instinct of a reason beyond reasonsthat compelled. 

But the man, holding her close to him, his lips upon her lips, did not heedher hot words of justification. His was the hunger which took whatsatisfied it without debate. 

"It makes little difference, the right and the wrong, after to-night, " hereplied grimly, "in all the days to come.... We have lived and we haveloved, that is enough. "

"No, no, --we are not weak, blind fools!" she spoke on swiftly. "I will nothave it so! I will not have you leave me to-night with the thought thatsome day you will feel that of me. You must understand--you must alwaysremember through all the years of life--that I--the woman you love--amsinless, am pure.... I can go with your kisses upon my lips to my children, to little Ned, and hold them tight, and know that I am pure in the sight ofGod! ... 

"I give them my life, my all, --I am giving them this, too. A woman's heartis not filled with the love of children. A woman's life is not closed atthirty-two! ... I have a soul--a life to be satisfied, --ah, dearest, a soulof my own to be filled, in order to give. Most men don't know that a womanhas a life of her own--apart from her children, from her husband, from all. It's hers, hers, her very own!" she cried with a sob of joy and anguish. 

In these words escaped the essence of that creed which had taken the placeof the Bishop's teaching, --the creed that is breathed insensibly in theatmosphere of the age, --'I, the woman, have a soul that is mine which hasits rights, and what it bids me take, that I will take and hold!'

The man listened to the solemn rhythm of the sea pounding upon the rockycoast, and it spoke to him of fatality, of the surge of life strikingblindly, carrying in its mighty grip the little human atoms. It had bornehim up to the stars, and in a few hours it would roll him back, down intothe gulf, from which no effort of his will could take him. With thishunger, which was his human birthright, he must labor on, unappeased. Itwas given him merely to know what would recreate living for him, what wouldmake of the days joy instead of pain, and it was not to be his, except forthis moment of time. 

"I think, " he said, "there is enough to suffer and endure. We will notquibble about the law. In the face of the gulf, why argue?" and he took heronce more in his arms, where she rested content.... 

Lawlor's Point was a little neck of shingle, curving inwards from the opensea, making a small harbor. On the landward side the still, salty marsh wasfringed by evergreens that rose dark in the night. Once it had been a farm, its few acres swept by the full Atlantic winds, its shore pounded by therock drift of the coast. Within the shingle the waves had washed a sandybeach.... Margaret knew the place years before, and they had found itto-night in the dark. The abandoned farm-house, windowless, loomed abovethem, desolate, forlorn, emitting an odor of the past from its damp rooms. About the old walnut tree where they had been sitting there grew in thelong grass fleur-de-lys and myrtle. 

"Let us go nearer to the water!" Margaret exclaimed. "I want to hear itsvoice close to my ears. This place is musty with dead lives. Dead lives!"She laughed softly. "I was like them once, only I walked and spoke, insteadof lying still in a grave. And then you found me, dearest, and touched me. I shall never be dead like that again. "

And when they had picked their way over the rough shingle to the water, shesaid in another passionate outburst, as if nature dammed for a long timewere pouring itself forth in torrent:--

"Pain! Don't say the word. Do you think that we can count the pain--ever?Now that we have lived? What is Pain against Being!"

"A man's thought, that!" he reflected, surprised by the piercing insight, the triumphant answer of the spirit to the backward dragging surge ofcircumstance. "A woman suffers--always more than a man. "

Margaret, flinging up her head to the dark heaven, the deep guttural noteof the sea in her ears, chanted low, "Some pain is tonic.... Thoughto-night we are together, one and undivided--for the last time, the lasttime, " she whispered, "yet I cannot feel the pain. "

The man rebelled:--

"The last time? ... But we are not ready, Margaret, --not yet!"

"We should never be ready!"

"We have had so little. "

"Yes! So little--oh, so little of all the splendid chance of living. "

The same thought lay between them. They had come but to the edge ofexperience, and beyond lay the vision of recreated life. Like souls thattouched the confines of a new existence and turned back, so must they turnback to earth. So little! A few hours of meeting, a few spoken words, a fewcaresses, a few moments like this of mute understanding, out of allconscious time, and then nothing, --the blank!

There was something cowardly, thus to turn back at the edge of experience, incomplete and wistfully desirous. Yet the man would not ask her to ventureon. What the woman would gladly give, he would not take as sacrifice. Sheunderstood. 

"Would it be easier?" she asked slowly, "if for a time we had all?"

"Yes!"

"If for a little while we left the world behind us and went away--toknow--all?"

"We should be happier then, always.... But I cannot ask it. "

"It would be better so, " she whispered dreamily. "I will go!"

Her hands clasped about him and her lips trembled. 

"We will take our life!" She smiled as the vision of joy--food for alifetime--filled her heart. "For a few hours I will be yours, all yours. "

Thus, there beside the grumbling sea, these two--full man and woman, havingweighed the issues of this life, the complex threads of soul and body, obligation and right, willed that they would take to themselves out of alleternity a few days, a few nights, a few mornings and a few evenings, --entire hours to be theirs, from which must be born courage for thefuture. 

 * * * * *

Old Mrs. Pole looked up at the sound of Margaret's step. The youngerwoman's face was pale, but still radiant with a complete joy. She pattedthe old lady's cheek and glanced down at the magazine in her lap. Betweenthese two there was a depth of unspoken sympathy. 

"Found a good story, mother dear?" Margaret asked. 

The old woman's lips trembled. Many times that evening she had resolved tospeak to Margaret of something her heart ached over. For she had seen farthese last days with those old eyes that had seen so much. She could divinethe dead waste in her daughter-in-law's heart, having lived with father andson, and out of the wisdom of suffering years endured she wished to speakto-night. But the deeper wisdom of age restrained her. 

"Yes, my dear, --a very good story. "

Each ache must find its own healing. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

The long train pulled slowly into the station of the little seaport town. It was late, as always at this turning-point of the season, when the summerpopulation was changing its roost from sea to mountain or from the north tothe south shore. Falkner, glancing anxiously along the line of cars for acertain figure, said again to himself, 'If she shouldn't come--at the lastmoment!' and ashamed of his doubt, replied, 'She will, if humanlypossible. ' ... At last his eye caught sight of Margaret as she stepped fromthe last car. She had seen him at the instant, and she smiled rapidly abovethe crowd, one of her fleeting smiles, like a ray of April sun. Anothersmile, he took her bag from the porter's hand, and their meeting was over. It was not until they were seated at a table in a sheltered corner of thestation restaurant that he spoke:--

"The _Swallow_ is waiting at the wharf. But we had best get something hotto eat here. We shall have a long sail. "

He took charge, at once, and while he ordered the luncheon, she looked atthe travellers swarming to their food. Once during the long ride she hadthought, "If we were seen by some one!" and her face had burned at themiserable fear. Now looking at the passing faces, she had a fierce wishthat she might be seen by all the world! To speak out, to actunashamed, --but not yet, --no; the time was not ripe. As her look returnedto Falkner, who was dressed in yachting flannels with a white sweater shesmiled again:--

"I am so hungry!"

"I am afraid it will be bad. However--"

"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters--to-day!"

Neither of them, she reflected, cared for the detail of life, for luxury, mere comfort. They had shed superfluity, unlike those around them, wholived for it. 

"Is it all right?" he asked as the waitress slung the dishes on the table. 

"Everything!" and she added: "I can telephone Ned? I promised to speak tohim every day. "

"Of course!"

"Now let us forget.... What a lot of people there are in the world runningabout!"

"We'll say good-by to them all very soon, " he replied. 

Their spirits rose as they ate. It was festive and joyous, even this dirtycountry station. The September sun was shining brightly through the window, and a faint breeze came straying in, smelling of the salt water. She hadgiven no thought to what they would do, to where they would go. She did notask. It was good to trust all to him, just to step forth from the old mazeinto this dreamed existence, which somehow had been made true, where therewas no need to take thought. She pushed away her ice untouched and beganslowly to draw on her gloves. 

"All the way here from Bedmouth I had a queer feeling that I was making ajourney that I had made before, though I was never here in my life. And nowit seems as if we had sat by this window some other day, --it is all soexpected!" she mused. And she thought how that morning when she got up, shehad gone to her little girl, the baby Lilla, and kissed her. With her armsabout the child she had felt again that her act was right and that some daywhen the little one was a woman she would know and understand. 

Her lips trembled, and then a slow smile suffused her face, bringing color, and leaning forward she murmured:--

"I am so happy!" Their eyes met, and for the moment they were lost inwonder, unconscious of the noisy room.... 

With a familiarity of old knowledge, Falkner descended the winding streetsto the water front. In this lower part of the town the dingy old houses hadan air of ancient grandeur, and tall elms drooped dust-laden branches overthe street. 

"Dear old place!" he exclaimed, memories reviving of his boyhood cruises. "It was in ninety-one when I was here last. I never expected to put in hereagain. "

The streets were empty, a noon stillness brooding in them. Margaret slippedher hand into his, the joy, the freedom, the sense of the open roadsweeping over her afresh. The world was already fading behind them.... Theycame out upon the wharves, and threaded their way among the sagging graybuildings that smelt of salt fish, until the harbor water lapped at thepiles beneath their feet. 

"There's the _Swallow_!" Falkner cried, pointing into the stream. 

They were soon aboard, and Margaret curled herself in the cockpit on a rug, while Falkner ran up the sails. Little waves were dancing across theharbor. Taking the tiller, he crouched beside her and whispered:--

"Now we are off--to the islands of the blest!"

It was all so in her dream, even to the white sail slowly filling beforethe breeze. They glided past hulking schooners lying idle with grimy sailsall set, and from their decks above black-faced men looked down curiouslyat the white figure in the cockpit of the little sloop. Behind theschooners the wharves and the red brick warehouses, the elms and the whitehouses on the hill, the tall spires--all drew backwards into the westeringsun. A low gray lighthouse came into sight; the _Swallow_ dipped and rose;and the breeze freshened as they entered the lower bay. A great ship wasslowly rounding the point, bound outward, too, laboring into the deep--forwhat? For some noisy port beneath the horizon. But for her the port ofstarlight and a man's arm, --the world was wonderful, this day! Falknerraised his hand and pointed far away to the eastward where a shadow laylike a finger on the sea, "Our harbor is over there!"

Away to the east, to the broad open ocean, it was fitting they shouldspeed, --they who had shaken themselves loose from the land.... 

She held the tiller when he rummaged below for a chart, and while she wasthere alone, a pot-bellied pleasure steamer, swarming with people, rolledpast, shaking the _Swallow_ with its wake. The people on the decks spiedthe sail-boat, raised glasses, looked down, and had their say. 'A bit ofthe chattering world that is left, ' thought Margaret, 'like all the rest. 'And something joyful within cried: 'Not to-day! To-day I defy you. To-day Ihave escaped--I am a rebel. You can do nothing with me. Oh, to-day I amhappy, happy, happy, --can you say that?' Falkner came up from the cabinwith his chart, and shading his eyes, swept the sea for the landmarks oftheir course. And the _Swallow_ sped on out of the noisy to-day through apath of gold and blue to the radiant to-morrow. 

"See!" Falkner pointed back to the old seaport grown dim in the distancebehind them. The sun was falling behind the steeples, and only the blacksmoke from engine and chimney marked the edge of the shore. Far away to thenorth opened a long reach of blue water and at the head of the bay greenfields descending gently to the sea. The _Swallow_ was a lonely dot in theopen waters, dipping, rising, the sun on its white sail, --fleeing always. Falkner sat beside her, circling her shoulders with his arm, talking of thesea and the boat as if they had sailed for many days like this together andwere familiar with all. His arm as it touched her said, 'I love you!' Andhis eyes resting on her face said, 'But we are happy, together, you andI, --so strangely happy!'

What was left there behind--the city and the vessels, the land itself--wasall the mirage of life, had never been lived by them. And this--theswaying, sweeping boat, a dot upon the ocean and they together, heart byheart, going outward to the sea and night--was all that was real. Could itbe possible that they two would ever land again on that far shore ofcircumstance, hemmed in by petty and sorrowful thoughts?

Yet across the dream came the thought of the Little Man, waiting behindthere, and the woman knew that on the morrow after the morrow she shouldwake. For life is stronger than a single soul! ... 

To the west and north there were islands, long stretches of sea openingbetween their green shores, far up into the coast land. The wind freshenedand died, until at last in the twilight with scarcely a ripple the_Swallow_ floated into a sheltered cove on the outermost of all theislands. A forest of stiff little spruces covered the sea point, and behindthis was a smooth green field, and above on the crest of the island a smallwhite farm-house. 

"A man named Viney used to live there, " Falkner said, breaking a longsilence. "Either he or some one else will take us in. " Margaret helped himanchor, furl the sails, and then they went ashore, pulling the tender farup on the shingle beech beside the lobster-pots. They crossed the field--itwas nearly dark and the _Swallow_ was a speck on the dark waterbeneath--and knocked at the white farm-house. 

"It is like what you knew must be so when you were a child, " whisperedMargaret. 

"But suppose they turn us away?"

"Why, we'll go back to the _Swallow_ or sleep under the firs! But theywon't. There is a charm in all our doings this day, dearest. "

The Vineys welcomed them, and gave them supper. Then Mr. Viney, diviningthat with these two wanderers a love matter was concerned, remarkedsuggestively:--

"Maybe you'd like to go over to my son's place to sleep. My son's folksbuilt a camp over there on the Pint. It's a sightly spot, and they've goneback to the city. Here, Joe, you show 'em the path!"

So in the starlight they threaded the spruce forest down by the sea, andfound the "camp, " a wooden box, with a broad veranda hanging over theeastern cliff. 

"Yes!" exclaimed Margaret, taking now her woman's place of command; "thisis the very spot. We'll sleep here on the veranda. You can bring out thebedding. If we had ordered it all, we could not have discovered the perfectthing, like this!"

The gray pathway of the ocean lay at their feet, and from the headlands upand down the coast, from distant islands, the lights began to call andanswer each other. A cloud of smoke far eastward hung over a seagoingsteamer. And throughout the little island, over the floor of the ocean, inthe wood about them, there was perfect stillness, a cessation of allmovement. 

"Peace! Such large and splendid peace!" Margaret murmured, as they stoodgazing at the beauty of the coming night. Peace without and answering peacewithin. Surely they had come to the heart of solitude, removed from thetumultuous earth. 

"Come!" he whispered at her ear, and she slowly turned her face to him. 

"Now, I know!" she said triumphantly. "This has been sent to answerme, --all the glory and the wonder and the peace of life, my dearest! I knowit all. We have lived all our years with this vision in our hearts, and ithas been given to us to have it at last. "

And as they lay down beside each other she murmured:--

"Peace that is above joy, --see the stars!"

And there beneath the tranquil stars in the calm night came the ecstasy ofunion, transcending Fate and Sorrow.... 

Thus at the extreme verge of human experience these two realized that innerstate of harmony, that equilibrium of spirit, towards which consciousbeings strive blindly, and which sanctioning what man forbids gives reasonto life. The spirit within them declared that it was best so to gain theheights, whether in the final sum of life it should lie as Sin or Glory, For this night, for these immediate hours, as man and woman they would riseto wider kingdoms of themselves than ever otherwise might be reached. 

Thus far to them had come revelation. 

 * * * * *

In the morning Margaret would play housewife. Sending Falkner to theVineys' for the things needed, she cooked the meal while he swam out to the_Swallow_ and made ready for the day's sail. Whimsically she insisted ondoing all without his help, and when he was ready, she served him beforeshe would eat herself, --"Just as Mrs. Viney would her man. "

Did she wish to show him that she was equal to the common surface ofliving, --a comrade to do her part? Or, rather, was the actsymbolical, --woman serving joyfully where she yields real mastery? Thewoman, so often capricious and disdainful, was submissive, as if she wouldsay: "This man is my mate. I am forever his. It is my best joy to bethrough him myself. "

And after the meal she insisted on completing the task by washing thedishes, putting all to rights in the camp; then mended a rent in his coatwhich he had got from a stumble in the dark the night before. He laughed, but her eyes shone. 

"Let me _do_ as long as I can! ... There--wouldn't you and I shed things!That's the way to live, --to shed things. " As they passed the Vineys' houseon their way to the boat, Margaret observed:--

"That would do very well for us, don't you think? You could go lobstering, and I would have a garden. Can you milk a cow?" She was picturing the mouldfor their lives. 

And all that day as they sailed among the islands, up thoroughfares, acrossthe reaches of the sea, they played a little game of selecting the rightcottage from the little white farm-houses dotted along the shores, andsaid, "We'd take this or that, and we'd do thus and so with it--and livethis way!" Then they would laugh, and grow pensive, as if the land with itssmoke wreaths had suddenly drifted past their eyes, reminding them of thefuture. 'You are bound with invisible cords, ' a voice said. 'You haveescaped in fancy, but to-morrow you will find the world wagging its oldway. ' But the woman knew that no matter what came, the morrow and all themorrows could never be again as her days once had been. For the subtlevirtue of a great fulfilment is its power to alter the inner aspect of allthings thereafter. Nothing could ever be the same to either of them. Thestuff of their inner lives had been changed.... 

They sailed the day long in the full sun, which beat down with a memory ofsummer that already had departed. At noon they landed on a rocky islet, amere clump of firs water bound, and after eating their luncheon they layunder the fragrant trees and talked long hours. 

"If this hadn't been, " Falkner said with deep gratitude, "we should nothave known each other. "

She smiled back triumphantly. That was the truth she had divined the nighthe was to have left her. 

"No, " she assented, "we should have been almost strangers and beendissatisfied always. "

"And now nothing can come between us, not time nor circumstance, nor pain. Nothing! It is sealed for all time--our union. "

"Our life together, which has been and will be forever. "

None of the surface ways of life, no exchange of words, no companionship, could have created anything to resemble this inner union which had comeabout. The woman giving herself with full knowledge, the man possessingwith full insight, --this experience had made a spirit common to both, inwhich both might live apart from each other, so long as they could see withthe spirit, --an existence new, deep, inner. 

So they talked of the life to be with perfect willingness, as two might whowere to part soon for a long journey, which both would share intimately andreal loneliness never seize them. 

"And beyond this luminous moment, " suggested the man, --his the speculativeimagination, --"there must lie other levels of intimacy, of comradeship. Ifwe could go on into the years like this, why, the world would ever benew, --we should go deeper into the mysteries every day, discoveringourselves, creating ourselves!"

The warm sunlight, the islands mirrored in the waveless sea, the aromaticbreath of the spruce and fir, the salty scent of the tidal shore--thisphysical world in which they lay--and that other more remote physical worldof men and cities--all, all was but the pictured drama of man's inner life. As he lived, each day dying and recreated, with an atmosphere of the soulas subtly shifting as the atmosphere of the earth, so this wonderfulpanorama of his faded, dissolved, was made anew. For out of the panorama ofsense man builds his tabernacle, and calls it life, but within the veilthere lies hidden beneath a power, that can unlock other worlds, --strange, beautiful worlds, like the mazes of the firmament through which the earthpursues its way. And the tide ebbing past this islet to the sea, flowingfast outward into the deep, carried them in its silent depths out into thenew, the mysterious places of the spirit. 

The sun sank, covering the islands and the sea with a rare amethystine glowdeepening to a band of purple, like some old dyed cloth, then fading topale green at the rim of the earth. There ensued a hush, a pause in life, that filled the air. 'We are fading, we are withdrawing, ' whispered theelements. 'Our hour is past, the riotous hour, the springtime flood, thepassionate will. And in our place the night will come and bring you peace. 'The sadness of change, the sense of something passing, of moments slippingaway to eternity! ... 

"Tell me, " she said as they drifted back with the tide, "what is it?"

"Only, " he answered, "the thought of waste, --that it should have come late, too late!"

Proudly denying the flaw in the perfect image, she protested:--

"Not late, --the exact hour. Don't you see that it could never have beenuntil now? Neither of us was ready to understand until we had lived all themistakes, suffered all. That is the law of the soul, --its great moments canneither be hastened nor delayed. All is appointed. "

Her gentle voice touched his heart like a soothinghand, --'Accept--rejoice--be strong--it must be so! And it is good!'

"Dearest, we should have passed each other in the dark, without knowing, earlier. You could not have seen me, the thing you love in me, nor I you, until we were stricken with the hunger.... It takes time to know thisbabbling life, to know what is real and what is counterfeit. Before orafter, who knows how it might have been? This was the time for us to meet!"

In these paths her eyes were bright to see the way, her feet accustomed. Soit was true. By what they had suffered, apart, by what they had tested andrejected, they had fitted themselves to come together, for this point oftime, this flame of fulfilment. Mystery of waste to be accepted. Nowistfulness for loss! Brave smiles for that which had been given. Andresolved hearts for that to come.... 

Slowly, with the mood of the day in her lingering feet, Margaret crossedthe field towards the Vineys' cottage, while Falkner stayed to make the_Swallow_ ready for its homeward journey in the morning. Joe Viney rowedout to the boat with him. Nodding towards the slight figure on the pathabove, the fisherman observed simply:--

"She ain't strong, your wife?"

With that illumined face! He had thought her this day pure force. Later ashe followed her slow steps to the camp, he said over the old man's words, "She ain't strong. " She lived behind her eyes in the land of will andspirit. And the man's arms ached to take her frail body to him, and keepher safe in some island of rest. 

CHAPTER XL

After supper Margaret sat and talked with Mrs. Viney. The fisherman's wifewas a woman of fifty, with a dragging voice, a faint curiosity in hermanner. Her iron-gray hair smoothed flat was tied in a little knot behind. Her husband, a good ten years older, had the vitality of a young mancompared with his wife. He was grizzled and squat, with thick red face andpowerful shoulders. His eyes twinkled sharply under their fleshy lids; buthe exhibited no outward curiosity over the two strangers who had droppeddown on his island. 

"That woman!" Margaret exclaimed disgustedly to Falkner as they went backto the camp. 

"Our excellent hostess? What is the matter with her?"

"She's a whiner!" Margaret replied hotly. "The woman is always thewhiner, --it makes me despise my sex. What do you suppose she wants? She hasa sister in Lawrence, Mass. , and Lawrence, Mass. , is her Paris! She wantsher husband to give up this, all the life he's known since he was a boy, and go to live in Lawrence, Mass. , so that she can walk on brick sidewalksand look into shop windows. There's an ideal for you, my dear!"

Falkner laughed at her outburst. After all an ambition for Lawrence, Mass. , was not criminal. 

"Oh, women! ... She wanted me to know that she had seen life, --knew a ladywho had rings like mine, --the social instinct in women, --phew! And hesmoked his pipe like an honest man and said not a word. He'll never die inLawrence, Mass. "

"But it must be lonely for the poor thing here winters; their children haveall gone to the city. "

"There are ten families at the other end of the island, if she must havesome one to clack with. "

"Perhaps she doesn't find the island society congenial, " Falkner suggestedslyly. He had heard Margaret inveigh against certain less restrictedsocieties. 

"But the old man said, 'Winters are best of all--when it's fierce outside, and there's nothing but yourself to amuse yourself with!' That's the man. And he said: 'I like the blows, too. I've been on the sea all my life, andI don't know nothing about it to speak on. ' He has a sense of what itmeans, --all this greatness about him. "

"But her element, you forget, is Lawrence, Mass. "

"The man has the imagination, if he is a man! If he is a man! Woman justtails on, --as I cling to you, dearest!"

"And sometimes I think you would want to take the lead, --to have your ownlittle way. "

"Yes, I like my way, too! But the women who think they can strike outalone--live their own lives, as they say--are foolish. The wise women workthrough men, --accomplish themselves in those they love. Isn't that biggerthan doing all the work yourself?"

"Women create the necessity for man's work. "

"You know I don't mean that! ... What is bliss is to make the way clear forthe one you loved.... I could do that! I'd set my little brain working tosmooth away the immediate difficulties, those that hinder, the littlethings that stick in the way. I'd clean the armor for my lord and bring himnourishing food. "

"And point out the particular castle you would like him to capture for yourdwelling?"

"Never! If the man were worth serving, he would mark his own game. "... 

They had walked to the eastern point of the island, where nothing was to beseen but the wide sea. The wind had utterly fallen, leaving the surface ofthe water mottled with currents from beneath. Far away on the horizon someships seemed to be sailing--they had wind out there--and their sails stillshone in the twilight. About the cliff at their feet the tide ran in blackcircles. It was still, and the earth was warm and fragrant from the hotday. Margaret rested her head upon his arm and closed her eyes. 

"It has been too much for you, " he said, concerned. 

"No, " she murmured, "I am not tired. This is content, at the day's end. Itis marvellous, "--she opened her eyes again upon him with a smile of wonder. "I haven't had a moment of fatigue, and I have done so much sinceyesterday, --more than I have done for years. I wonder what it is gives uswomen strength or weakness. "

"Joy gives strength!"

"Peace gives strength. Sometimes I think that all the weakness inlife--women's weakness--is merely wrong adjustment. It is never work thatkills--it isn't just living, no matter how hard it is. But it is trying tolive when you are dead.... Dearest, if we stayed here, I should be alwaysstrong! I know it. All the weariness and the pain and the languor would go;I should be what I was meant to be, what every human being is meant tobe, --strong to bear. "

"It is a bitter thought. "

"I suppose that is why men and women struggle so blindly to set themselvesright, why they run away and commit all sorts of follies. They feel withinthem the capacity for health, for happiness, if they can only get rightsomehow. And when they find the way--"

She made a little gesture with her hand that swept the troubles from theroad. 

"If they can be sure, it is almost a duty--to put themselves right, isn'tit?"

Here they had come to the temptation which in all their intimate momentsthey had avoided.... 'Others have remade the pattern of their lives, --whynot we?' The woman answered the thought in the man's mind. 

"I should never take it, even knowing that it is my one chance for healthand all that I desire, not while my father lives, not while mymother-in-law lives; it would add another sorrow to their graves. Nor whilemy husband has a right to his children. We are all bound in criss-cross inlife. Nor would you, dearest, have me; you would hate me, --it would turnour glory to gall!"

It was not her habit to put her hands before her eyes. She was clear withherself, and without the sentimental fog. For the Bishop's creed she carednothing. For her mother-in-law's prejudices she cared as little. Thepunishment of Society she would have met with gleeful contempt. Peoplecould not take from her what she valued, for she had stripped so much thatthere was little left in her heart to be deprived of. As for her husband, he did not exist for her; towards him she was spiritually blind. Herchildren were so much a part of her that she never thought of them as awayfrom her. Where she went, they would be, as a matter of course. 

They had never laid all this on the table before them, so to speak, butboth had realized it from the beginning. They had walked beside the socialprecipice serene, but aware of the depths--and the heights. 

"I hate to be limited by the opinions, the prejudices, of other people, ofany one, " the man protested. "There seems a cowardice in silentlyacquiescing in social laws that I don't respect, because the majority sowills it. "

"Not because it is the will of the majority--not that; but because othersnear you will be made wretched. That is the only morality I have!"

The law of pity in the place of the law of God! A fragile leash for passionand egotism. They both shuddered. 

The dusk gathered all about them. Her head still rested on his breast, andher hand stole to his face. She whispered, "So we pay the forfeit--for ourblindness!"

"And if I stay--"

"Don't say it! Don't say that! Do you think that I could be here thismoment in your arms if _that_ were possible?"

Her voice trembled with scorn, disgust of the adulterous world. 

"Hiding and corner lies for us? No, no, my lover, --not for _you!_ Not evenfor _me_. That is the one price too great to pay for happiness. It wouldkill it all. Kill it! Surely. I should become in your eyes--like oneof--_them_. It would be--oh, you understand!" She buried her head in hiscoat. 

Again she had saved them, kept the balance of their ideal. She would havelove, not hidden lust. What she had done this once could never be doneagain without defilement. She had come to him as to a man condemned to die, to leave the earth forever, and the one most precious thing he wanted andthe one most precious thing that she had to give, --that she had givenfreely--to the man condemned to death. 

"We have come all the hard way up the heights to infinite joy, to Peace!Shall we throw ourselves down into the gulf?"... 

 * * * * *

In the night Falkner woke with a start, putting out his hand to fend off acatastrophe. She was not there by his side! For one moment fear filled hismind, and then as he sprang up he saw her in the faint moonlight, leaningagainst the post of the veranda, looking out into the night. At hismovement she turned. 

"The night was too beautiful to sleep through, dearest! I have so much tothink about. "

She came back to his side and knelt above him, drawing her cloak aroundher. "See! we are all alone here under the stars. " The fog had stolen infrom the sea, risen as high as the trees, and lay close over land andocean. The heavens were cloudless, and the little moon was low. "Thosetranquil stars up there! They give us our benediction for the time tocome.... We have had our supreme joy--our desire of desires--and now Peaceshall enter our hearts and remain there. That is what the night says.... Itcan never be as it was before for you or me. We shall carry away somethingfrom our feast to feed on all our lives. We shall have enough to giveothers. Love makes you rich--so rich! We must give it away, all our lives. We shall, dearest, never fear. "

For the soul has its own sensualities, --its self-delight in pain, inhumiliation, --its mood of generosity, too. The penetrating warmth of agreat passion irradiates life about it. 

"My children, my children, " she murmured, "I love them more--I can do forthem more. And for dear Mother Pole--and even for him. I shall begentler--I shall understand.... Love was set before me. I have taken it, and it has made me strong. I will be glad and love the world, all of it, for your sake, because you have blessed me.... Ours is not the fire thatturns inward and feeds upon itself!"

"Oh, Margaret, Margaret!--"

"Listen, " she murmured, clasping his neck, "you are the Man! You mustspread the flame where I cannot. I kiss you. I have eaten of life with you. Together we have understood. Forget me, cease to love me; but always youmust be stronger, greater, nobler because you have held me in your arms andloved me. If you cannot carry us upwards, it has been base, --the merehunger of animals, --my lover! You have made of my weakness strength, and Ihave given you peace! Pour it out for me in deeds that I may know I haveloved a Man, that my hero lives!"

Like a cry of the spirit it rang out into the night between the mist-hiddenearth and the silent stars. In the stillness there had come a revelation oflife, --the eternal battle of man between the spirit and the flesh, betweenthe seen and the unseen, the struggle infinite and always. Where life is, that must be. And the vision of man's little, misshapen existence, --theincomplete and infinitesimal unit he is, --and also the significance ofhim, --this material atom, the symbol, the weapon of the spirit, shone forthbefore them. This the woman had felt in giving herself to him, that thespirit within was freed by the touch of flesh.... 

Already in the calm night desire and passion seemed to fade from them. Herehad ended their passion, and now must begin the accomplishment. When therevelation comes, and the spirit thus speaks through the flesh, it is peacewith human beings.... 

They lay there awake but silent into the gray hours of dawn, and when themist had spread upwards to the sky, shutting out the stars, they slept. 

CHAPTER XLI

At breakfast Joe Viney said:--

"I was lobsterin' this morning. "

"It must have been the thud of your oars that we heard when we woke. "

"Mos' likely, --I was down there at the end of the island, hauling in thepots. It's goin' to be a greasy day. But there's wind comin'. "

They could hear the long call of a steamer's whistle and the wail of thefog-horn beyond the next island. The little white house was swathed in thesea mist. 

"Better take the steamer at the Neck, if you're going to the city, " Mrs. Viney suggested. "It'll be cold and damp sailing this morning. "

"Never!" Margaret protested. 

Mrs. Viney looked at Margaret pityingly. That a woman from the city shouldcare to come to this forlorn, lonesome spot, "when the summer folks hadgone, " and sleep out of doors on fir boughs, and go off in a messysail-boat in a fog, when there was a clean, fast steamer that would takeher in an hour to the city--it was a mystery. As she packed some pieces ofsoggy bread, a little meat, and still soggier cake into a box for theirluncheon she shook her head, protesting:--

"You'll spoil that hat o' yourn. It wasn't meant for sailin'. "

"No, it wasn't; that's true!" She took off the flower-bedecked hat with itsfilmy veiling. "Would you like it? I shall find a cap in the boat. "

'Clearly, ' thought Mrs. Viney, 'the woman is crazy;' but she accepted thehat. Afterwards she said to her husband:--

"I can't make them two out. She ain't young, and she ain't exactly old, andshe ain't pretty, --well, she's got the best of the bargain, a little wisplike her. " For, womanlike, she admired Falkner in his sweater and flannels, strong and male, with a dark coat of tan on his face. 

Viney accompanied them to the boat, waddling across the field, his hands inthe armholes of his vest. He said little, but as he shoved them off intheir tender, he observed:--

"It's the sort of day you could get lost in mighty easy. "

"Oh, " Falkner called back cheerily, "I guess I know my way. "

"Well, I guess you _do_!"

 * * * * *

As Viney had said, the wind came through the fog, driving the boat inunseen fashion, while the sail hung almost limp. There was a little eddy ofoily water at the stern; they were slipping, sliding through the fog-bank, back to the earth. 

"Back to life, " Falkner hummed, "back; back, to the land, to the world!"

The fog clung in Margaret's hair, and dimmed her eyes. She bared her armsto feel the cool touch of it on her skin. Clean things, like the sunyesterday, the resinous firs, the salty fog, --clean elemental things, --howshe loved them!

"And suppose, " Falkner suggested, "I should lose my way in this nest ofreefs and islands and we got shipwrecked or carried out to sea?"

"I should hear Ned calling through the fog. " A simple answer, but withalenough. Their hour, which they had set themselves, was past. And lying herein the impalpable mist, slipping towards the hidden port, she was filledwith ineffable content.... 

"You are still radiant!" Falkner said wonderingly. 

"It can't fade--never wholly! I cherish it. " She drew her arms close abouther. "Sacred things never utterly die!"

They had found it, they had lived it, they knew--what the unspiritual andcarnal millions that clutter God's earth may never know--ecstasy, thesecret behind the stars, beyond the verge of the sea, in the great lunarspaces of spirit. 

 * * * * *

On they glided through the thoroughfares, around island points, acrossreaches of the sea, sweeping onward now with an audible gurgle in theirwake, the sails bellying forward; veering this way, falling off there, asthe impassive man touched the tiller, obeying an instinct, seeing into thedark beyond. Now a bit of cliff loomed in the fog, again a shingled roof ora cluster of firs, and the whistling buoy at the harbor's mouth began tobellow sadly, --reminders all of the shell of that world towards which theysailed. And at last the harbor, with its echoing bells and fog-whistles, the protesting shrieks of its man-machines; suddenly the colossal hull of aschooner at anchor. Then the ghostly outlines of the huddled shipping, thecity roofs, the steeples, the shriek of engines in the freight yards--theytouched the earth! It had ended. The noise of living reverberated in theirears. 

Margaret rose with a sigh, and looked back through the closing curtain offog to an island headland misty and vague. 

"My heaven--oh, my heaven! our haven, my master!"

Like two newly wakened beings, stunned by the light and sound around them, they stumbled over the wharf. A large sailing vessel was loading there forits voyage, --a Portuguese ship bound for Demerara, so the black sailor saidwhom Falkner questioned. With a last look at its tall masts they took theirway into the city and so to the station. 

Here was the same crowd coming from the trains, --the little human motespushing hither and thither, hurrying from train to train, dashing, dawdling, loitering. Were they the same motes as two days before? Were theyalways the same, --marionettes wound to perform the clamorous motions oflife? Or were they men and women like themselves, with their own greatsecrets in their hearts? Above all, the secret that transforms! Had theseothers, too, gone into the great high places?

They walked to the bridge while they waited for the Bedmouth train. Fardown the harbor rose the tall masts of the Portuguese ship. 

"Bound for Demerara, " murmured Falkner, with a smile; "we might be sailingfor the Windward Islands?"

"No, " Margaret smiled back; "we love too much for that, --you and I. "

CHAPTER XLII

Within the old parlor of the Bedmouth house Mrs. Pole was waiting for astep. It came at last. 

"The children?" Margaret demanded, kissing the old lady. 

"Perfectly well. "

"I must go up to them, " and she started for the door. 

"Wait!" Mrs. Pole said, looking up sadly into the younger woman's paleface, which still held the glow. 

"Yes, mother?" The voice rang with a note of vitality, of life, as if tochant, 'I have come back to you from a long way off!' Mrs. Pole saidslowly:--

"Lawrence is upstairs. He came on from New York yesterday. "

"Oh!"

At the head of the stairs she met her husband, who had heard her voicebelow. 

"You have been away!" he said sharply, an unwonted touch of authority inhis voice. 

It was in her heart to say: 'Yes, in heaven! Can't you see it in my face?'She replied gently:--

"Yes, I have been--away!"

"Where?"

She looked at him out of her deep eyes, and said slowly:--

"Do you wish me to tell you?"

And after a moment, as if her husband was not there and she were lookingthrough him at something beyond, she went on into the children's room. Pole, steadying himself by the hand-rail, descended the stairs. 

He no longer existed, even as a convention, for his wife. 

PART FIVE

CHAPTER XLIII

Isabelle had not succeeded in bringing Vickers home with her that firsttime she had gone abroad. They had had a very pleasant month in theDolomites, and he had taken her to Paris to join the Woodyards, with whomshe returned. Whenever she had spoken to Vickers of coming home he hadsmiled and made a little joke. Once he said, "Not yet, --I cannot go yet, Belle, " and she understood that it was "that beast of a woman, " as shecalled Mrs. Conry, who kept him. She wanted to say to him, "Well, Vick, ifyou won't leave her, why don't you marry her then!" But gentle as herbrother was to her, she did not like to touch on that topic. 

She had meant to go over the next spring, but the new house was under waythen. A year later a letter from Fosdick, who was returning from Russia bythe way of Venice, made her start for Europe at once. 

... "Madam, " Fosdick wrote, "having sucked our Vickers dry, has left him atlast, I am happy to say. Gone off with a fresh orange. Vick doesn't realizehis luck, --he's plain dazed. Before the other orange becomes dry, it is oursimple duty--yours and mine--to remove the stranded hero out of reach. Ithink you can do it now.... I forgot to say that the Conry left with him apledge of her return in the shape of a lump of a girl, her daughter byConry. Vick seems idiotically tied to this little Conry.... Oh, it is ashame, a shame!"

Isabelle cabled Fosdick to bring Vickers with him to Paris and started withher mother. "No sermons, you know, mother, " she warned Mrs. Price. "It'ssomething you and I don't understand. "

When Vickers came to their hotel in Paris, it seemed to Isabelle that thelast two years had worked more damage than the previous six. There was adazed and submissive air about her brother that brought the tears to hereyes. In the languid, colorless face before her, she could scarcely find atrace of the pale, tense boy, who had roused her in the middle of the nightthe day before he left St. Louis.... 

"Why don't you come to this hotel?" Mrs. Price had demanded. 

Vickers had made an excuse, and when his mother had left the room, he saidto Isabelle, "You will have to explain to mother that I am not alone. "

Isabelle gasped, and Vickers hastened to say, "You see Delia is with me. "

"Dick wrote me that she left her child!"

"Yes.... I am really very fond of the poor little thing. "

"The beast!" Isabelle muttered. 

Vickers shuddered, and Isabelle resolved that no matter what happened shewould not allow herself to refer again to either mother or child. Later shewalked back with him to his rooms and saw the girl. Delia Conry was aheavily built and homely girl of thirteen, with light gray eyes. All butthe eyes were like her father, the builder. There was no hint of themother's soft, seductive physique. 

"Delia, " Vickers said gently, "come and speak to my sister, Mrs. Lane. "

As the child awkwardly held out a hand, Isabelle felt the tears come intoher eyes. Here was her old Vickers, --the gentle, idealistic soul she hadloved, the only being it seemed to her then that she had ever really loved. 

"Delia and I have been tramping the Louvre, " Vickers remarked. "That's theway we are learning history. "

Isabelle glanced about the forlorn little sitting-room of the third-classhotel. 

"Why did you come here?"

"It does well enough, and it's near the Louvre and places.... It is veryreasonable. "

Then Isabelle remembered what Fosdick had said about Vickers's gift of halfhis fortune to Mrs. Conry. "You see the idiot hadn't sense enough to runoff with a man who had money. Some damn fool, artist! That's why you mustpack Vick away as soon as you can get him to go. "

With this in her mind she exclaimed impulsively:--

"You are coming back with us, Vick!"

"To live in America?" he queried with bitter humor. "So you came out as arescue party!"

"You must get back into life, " Isabelle urged vaguely. 

"What life? You don't mean the hardware business?"

"Don't be silly! ... You can't go on living over here alone by yourselfwith that child. "

"Why not?"

"Oh, because--you must _do_ something, Vick! I want you to be famous. "

"That doesn't seem quite possible, now, " he replied gently. 

"You'll come and live with me--oh, I need you, Vick!"

She threw her arms about him and hugged him tightly to her as she had as agirl. The intensity of her feeling moved him strangely, and her words also. What was it she meant by "needing him"?

"You must--that's the thing!"

Holding her head away she searched his face critically, and her heart waswrung again by the sense of waste in it all. "Poor brother, " she murmured, tightening her clasp. 

"I'm not going over as a helpless dependent!" he protested, and suddenlywithout warning he shot out his question, --"And what have _you_ made out ofit? How have the years been?"

"Oh, we jog on, John and I, --just the usual thing, you know, --no heightsand no depths!"

An expression of futility came momentarily into her eyes. It wasn't whatshe had pictured to herself, her marriage and life. Somehow she had neverquite caught hold of life. But that was a common fate. Why, after all, should she commiserate her brother, take the 'poor Vick' tone thateverybody did about him? Had she attained to a much more satisfactory levelthan he, or had the others who 'poor Vickered' him? There was something inboth their natures, perhaps, at jar with life, incapable of effectiveness. 

Vickers finally consented to return to America with his mother and sister"for a visit. " Delia, he said, ought to see her father, who was a brokenman, living in some small place in the West. (Isabelle suspected thatVickers had sent him also money. ) Conry had written him lately, asking fornews of his daughter. 

"Does Vick intend to tote that lump of a girl around with him for the nexttwenty years?" Mrs. Price demanded of Isabelle, when she heard that Deliawas to be of their party. 

"I suppose so, unless she totes herself off!"

"The woman dumped her child on him! Well, well, the Colonel had somethingof the fool in him where women were concerned, --only I looked after that!"

"Mother, " Isabelle retorted mischievously, "I am afraid you'll never beable to keep down the fool in us; Vick is pretty nearly all fool, thedear!"

Her brother's return being settled, Isabelle plunged into her shopping, buying many things for both the houses, as well as her dresses. There werefriends flitting back and forth, snatches of sight-seeing, and theatres. Bythe time they took the steamer Isabelle confessed she was a "wreck. " Yetshe talked of taking an apartment in Paris the next spring and sending herchild to a convent, as Mrs. Rogers had done. "It would be nice to have myown corner over here to run to, " she explained. "Only Potts wants me tobury myself at Schwalbach. "

Cairy joined them at Plymouth. He had been in London making arrangementsfor the production of a play there, and had hopes of enlarging his sphere. 

"Coming home?" he asked Vickers. "That's good!"

"Thank you, " Vickers replied dryly. 

Cairy had already the atmosphere of success about him. He still limped in adistinguished manner, and his clothes marked him even in the company ofwell-dressed American men. He had grown stouter, --was worried by the fearof flesh, as he confided to Vickers, --and generally took himself withserious consideration. It was a far call from the days when he had beenGossom's ready pen. He now spoke of his "work" importantly, and was kind toVickers, who "had made such a mess of things, " "with all that money, too. "With his large egotism, his uniform success where women were concerned, Vickers's career seemed peculiarly stupid. "No woman, " he said to Isabelle, "should be able to break a man. " And he thought thankfully of the squareblow between the eyes that Conny had dealt him. 

In the large gay party of returning Americans that surrounded Isabelle andCairy on the ship Vickers was like a queer little ghost. He occupiedhimself with his small charge, reading and walking with her most of thedays. Isabelle was conscious of the odd figure Vickers made, in hisill-fitting Italian clothes, with an old Tyrolean cloak of faded greenhanging about him, his pale face half hidden by a scrubby beard, hisunseeing eyes, wandering over the great steamer, a little girl's hand inhis, or reading in a corner of the deserted dining hall. 

Vickers was not so dull of eye, however, that he did not observe Isabelleand Cairy, sitting side by side on the deck, talking and reading. Theytried to "bring him in, " but they had a little language of jokes andreferences personal to themselves. If Vickers wondered what his sister, ashe knew her, found so engrossing in the Southerner, he was answered by aremark Isabelle made:--

"Tom is so charming! ... There are few men in America who understand how totalk to a woman, you know. "

When Vickers had left his native land, the art of talking to a woman asdistinguished from a man had not been developed.... 

Lane met the party at Quarantine. That was his domestic office, --"meeting"and "seeing off. " As he stood on the deck of the bobbing tug waving to hiswife, he was a symbol of the American husband, Cairy jokingly pointed out. "There's John holding out the welcoming arms to roving wife. " And therewere hundreds of them, roving wives, on the deck, very smartly dressed fortheir return to domesticity, with laden trunks coming up out of the holds, and long customs bills to pay, the expectant husbands waiting at the pierwith the necessary money. And there were others with their husbands besidethem on the decks, having carried them through Europe, bill-payers andarrangers extraordinary for their majesties, the American wives. Cairy waswriting a farce about it with the title, "Coming Home. "

Vickers, who scarcely remembered his brother-in-law, looked curiously atthe self-possessed, rather heavy man on the tug. He was an effectiveperson, "one who had done something, " the kind his countrymen much admired. "Had a pleasant voyage, I suppose, and all well?" Then he had turned toVickers, and with slight hesitation, as if not sure of his ground, observed, "You will find considerable changes, I suppose. "

"I suppose so, " Vickers assented, feeling that conversation between themwould be limited. In the confusion at the pier while the numerous trunkswere being disgorged, Vickers stood apart with Delia Conry and had anopportunity to observe the quiet, efficient manner in which John Lanearranged everything. He had greeted Isabelle and his mother impartially, with a family kiss for both. Vickers caught his brother-in-law's eye on himseveral times as they were waiting, and once Lane made as if to speak andwas silent. Vickers was sensitively aware that this man of affairs couldnot pretend to understand him, --could at the best merely conceal undergeneral tolerance and family good feeling his real contempt for one who hadso completely "made a mess of things. " He had foreseen the brother-in-law, and that had been one reason why he had hesitated to return, even for avisit. Lane soon made another effort, saying: "You will find it rather warmin the city. We have had a good deal of hot weather this summer. "

"Yes, " Vickers replied; "I remember New York in September. But I am used tolong summers. "

As the stranger's eyes roved over the noisy pier, Lane looked at the littlegirl, who was rendered dumb by the confusion and clung to Vickers's hand, and then he eyed his brother-in-law again, as if he were recollecting theold Colonel and thinking of the irony in the fact that his only survivingson should be this queer, half-foreign chap. 

A large motor waited outside the pier to take the party to the hotel. 

"Aren't you coming, Tom?" Isabella asked, as Cairy made for a cab with hisluggage. 

"I will meet you at the station to-morrow, " Cairy called back. "Business!"

"Well, --how is everything?" she asked her husband. "Glad to see me back?"

"Of course. "

They darted swiftly up town to an immense hotel, where Lane had engagedrooms for the party. Having seen them into the elevator, he returned by themotor to his office. 

CHAPTER XLIV

The old Farm at Grafton had been marvellously transformed. Vickers Price, standing on the terrace the evening of his arrival, looked wistfully forlandmarks, for something to recall the place he had loved as a boy, whichhad gathered charm in his imaginative memory these years of his exile. TheGeorgian facade of the new house faced the broad meadow through which thewedding party had wandered back to the Farm the day of Isabelle's marriage. Below the brick terrace, elaborate gardens, suggesting remotely Italy, hadbeen laid out on the slope of the New England hill. The thin poplars, struggling to maintain themselves in the bitter blasts of an Americanwinter, gave an unreal air to the place as much as anything. The village ofGrafton, which had once been visible as a homely white-dotted road beyondthe meadow, had been "planted out. " There was a formal garden now where theold barn stood, from which the Colonel's pointers had once yapped theirgreetings on the arrival of strangers. The new brick stables and the garagewere in the woods across the road, connected with the house by telephone. 

On their arrival by the late train they had had supper quite informally. Ithad been served by two men, however, and there was a housekeeper to relievethe mistress of the care of the increased establishment. What hadbewildered Vickers on his return to America after an absence of ten years, from the moment he had taken ship until the Lanes' new French motor hadwhisked him up to the Farm--Isabelle still clung to the old name--was thelavish luxury, the increased pace of living, on this side of the ocean. Theyears he had spent in Italy had been the richest period of our industrialrenaissance. In the rising tide of wealth the signs of the old order--thesimplicity of the Colonel's day--had been swept away. 

As Vickers stood rather apart from the others, who were strolling about theterrace, and looked at Dog Mountain, the only perfectly familiar feature inthe scene, Isabella tucked her arm under his and led him towards thegardens:--

"Vick, I want you to see what I have done. Don't you think it's muchbetter? I am not altogether satisfied. " She glanced back at the longfacade: "I think I should have done better with Herring rather than Osgood. But when we started to alter the old place, I didn't mean to do so much toit. "

Isabelle knew more now than when Osgood had been engaged, two years before, and Herring's reputation had meanwhile quite overshadowed the olderarchitect's. 

"I told Isabelle at the start, " said Cairy, who joined them, "she hadbetter pull the old place down, and have a fresh deal. You had to come toit practically in the end?" He turned to Isabelle teasingly. 

"Yes, " she admitted half regretfully; "that's the way I always do athing, --walk backwards into it, as John says. But if we had built from theground up, it wouldn't have been this place, I suppose.... And I don't seewhy we did it, --Grafton is so far from anything. "

"It's neither Tuxedo nor Lenox, " Cairy suggested. 

"Just plain Connecticut. Well, you see the Colonel left the place tome, --that was the reason. "

And also the fact that he had left her only a small portion of his fortunebesides. It was an ironical rebuke for his act that much of the smallfortune he had given her had gone to transform his beloved Farm intosomething he would never have recognized. Vickers thought sadly, "If theold Colonel's ghost should haunt this terrace, he couldn't find his wayabout!"

"But it's snug and amusing, --the Farm? Isn't it?" Cairy demanded of Vickersin a consoling manner. 

"I shouldn't call it snug, " Vickers replied, unconsciously edging away fromthe Southerner, "nor wholly amusing!"

"You don't like my efforts!" Isabelle exclaimed wearily. She herself, asshe had said, was not satisfied; but money as well as strength and herhusband's dislike of "more building" had held her hand. 

"We all change, " Vickers replied humorously. "I can't blame the old placefor looking different. I have changed somewhat myself, and you, Cairy, "--heglanced at the figure by his sister's side, which had sleek marks ofprosperity as well as the Farm, --"too. All changed but you, Isabelle!"

"But I have changed a lot!" she protested. "I have grown better looking, Vickie, and my mind has developed, hasn't it, Tom? One's family never seesany change but the wrinkles!"... 

Vickers, turning back to the terrace where Fosdick and Gossom were smoking, had a depressed feeling that of all the changes his was the greatest. 

"I must look in on my little girl, " he explained to Isabelle, as he lefther and Cairy. 

Isabelle watched him mount the steps. His small figure had grown heavy fromhis inactive life abroad. The thick hair had almost gone from the top ofhis head, and the neat pointed beard had become bushy. In his negligentclothes he looked quite slouchy, she had felt that evening, as if he hadlong ceased to have any interest in his person. "It's all that beast of awoman, " she said resentfully to Cairy, remembering the slender, quiteelegant brother of the old days. "And to think of his saddling himself withher brat and lugging her around with him! I couldn't make him drop her inNew York with her governess. But it's impossible!"

"The lady left him her husband's child, as a souvenir, didn't she?"

"I can't think of it!" Isabelle exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders. "To gooff with that other man--after all he had given up for her! The beast!"

"Perhaps that was the best she could do for him under the circumstances, "Cairy remarked philosophically. "But the child must be a bore. " He laughedat the comical situation. 

"Just like Vick!"

It was also like Vickers to give Mrs. Conry a large share of his smallfortune when she had seen fit to leave him, as Fosdick had told her.... 

After visiting his small charge, who was lonely this first night in thestrange house, Vickers had gone to his room and sat down by the window. Below him on the terrace Fosdick and Gossom were discussing Socialism, theRussian revolution, and the War of Classes. New topics, or rather new formsof old themes, they seemed to Vickers. Fosdick, from his rolling around theearth, had become an expert on the social revolution; he could tell theapproximate dates when it "would be pulled off" in all the great countries. He had bought a farm somewhere in Vermont, and had sat down to wait for thesocial revolution; meantime he was raising apples, and at intervalsdescended upon the houses of his friends to inveigh against predatorywealth or visited the city for the sake of more robust amusement. Gossom, whose former radicalism was slowly modifying into an "intelligentconservatism, " was mildly opposing Fosdick's views. "We have gone too farin this campaign of vilification of wealth, --Americans are sound at thecore, --what they want is conservative individualism, a sense of the law, "etc. Vickers smiled to himself, and looking out over the old meadow forgotall about the talkers. 

From the meadow came the sweet scent of the September crop of hay. Therewas the river at the end of the vista, disappearing into a piece ofwoodland. The place was sown with memories, and Vickers's eyes were moistas he leaned there, looking forth into the night. It was but a shallow NewEngland brook, this river, meandering through cranberry bogs, with aldersand bilberry bushes on either side. He remembered the cranberry picking atthis season, and later when the meadow had been flooded, the skating overthe bushes that were frozen in the ice, and the snaky forms of thecranberry plants visible at the bottom. All these years he had thought ofthis little meadow as he had conceived it when a child, --a mighty riverflowing on mysteriously through the dark valley, --on, around the woods thatmade out like a bold headland, then on and on to the remote sea. It was dimand wild, this meadow of his childhood, and the brook was like that riveron which was borne to Camelot the silent bark with the fair Elaine. Hisolder brother had taken him down that same brook in a canoe, --a quitewonderful journey. They had started early, just as the August moon wassetting; and as they passed the headland of woods--pines and maples fearfulin their dark recesses--an early thrush had broken the silence of theglimmering dawn with its sweet call. And another had answered from thedepth of the wood, and then another, while the little canoe had slippednoiselessly past into strange lands, --a country altogether new andmysterious.... To-night that old boyhood thrill came over him, as whenkneeling in the canoe with suspended paddle, in the half light of dawn, hehad heard the thrushes calling from the woods. Then it had seemed that lifewas like this adventurous journey through the gray meadows, past the silentwoods, on into the river below, and the great sea, far, far away! Awonderful journey of enlarging mystery from experience to experience intosome great ocean of understanding.... 

Vickers sat down at the piano by the window, and forgetting all that hadtaken the place of his dream, --the searing flame of his manhood, --struckthe gentle chords of that boyhood journey, something of the river and themeadow and the woods and the gray dawn, which had often sounded in his earsfar away in Venice. 

Isabelle and Cairy, coming up the terrace steps, heard the notes andstopped to listen. 

"Charming!" Cairy murmured. "His own?"

"How I wish he would try to do something, and get his work played by ourorchestras! He could if he would only interest himself enough. But theambition seems gone out of him. He merely smiles when I talk about it. "

"He'll come back to it, " Cairy grinned. "It's in the air here to put yourtalent in the front window. "

Vickers played on softly, dreaming of the boy's river of life, at home oncemore in the old Farm. 

 * * * * *

Early the next morning as Vickers stole softly through the corridor, on hisway for a stroll, a door opened and Isabelle looked out. 

"You'll find coffee downstairs, Vick. I remembered your dawn-wanderinghabit and asked Mrs. Stevens to have it ready for you. I'll join you in afew moments. "

Before he had finished his coffee, Isabelle appeared and sleepily pouredout a cup for herself. The servant was making ready a tray at thesideboard. 

"Tom is one of your sleepless kind, too, " she explained. "He does hiswriting before the house is awake, so as not to be disturbed, or he says hedoes. I believe he just turns over and takes another nap!"

"Cairy seems at home here, " Vickers observed, sipping his coffee. 

"Of course, Tommy is one of the family, " Isabelle replied lightly. "He ismuch more domesticated than John, though, since his great success lastwinter, he hasn't been up very much. "

"Has he made a great success?" Vickers inquired. "What at?"

"Haven't you heard of his play! It ran all the winter, and this new onethey say will also make a great hit. "

Vickers, who remembered Cairy in college as one always endeavoring afterthings out of his reach, looked mildly surprised. 

"I hadn't heard that he was a dramatist, " he said. 

"I wish _you_ would do something!" Isabelle remarked, feeling that Cairy'ssuccess might point for Vickers his own defeat, and stir him into healthyaction. 

"What? Write a play?"

"No--you old dear!" She caressed his hand. "I think it would be good foryou to feel you were doing something in the world, instead of running aboutwith that absurd child. " She wanted to say much more about Delia Conry, butbided a more fitting time. 

"I haven't run much so far, " was all that Vickers replied. "You shouldn'thave bothered to come down, " he added when the coffee was finished. "I justwanted to poke around the old place as I used to. "

"I know--and I wanted to be with you, of course, this first time. Don't youremember how we got our own breakfasts when we went shooting in theautumn?"

Her brother nodded. 

"Those were good times, Vick! ... They were the best for both of us, " sheadded less buoyantly. She pushed away her cup, put her arm about hisshoulders, and kissed him. 

"You shouldn't say that, Belle!"

"Vickie, it's so nice to hug you and have you all to myself before theothers are up. I've missed some one to go batting with me, to hug and bullyand chatter with. Now you've come I shall be a girl all over again. "

And Isabelle was her old self for the first time since Vickers had joinedher in Paris a month before, --no longer preoccupied, striving after somesatisfaction that never perfectly arrived. Here the past was upon themboth, --in spite of Osgood's transformations, --a past when they had beenclose, in the precious intimacy of brother and sister. Outside in the new, very new Dutch garden, Isabelle resumed her anxieties of the day. 

"The gardener ought not to have put those bulbs there, --he knows nothingreally! I shall have to find another man.... I hope the chauffeur Johnengaged will get along with the houseman. The last one fought.... Oh, did Itell you that Potts is coming out Saturday, --the great Dr. Potts? He wantsto look me over, --get me ready for the winter campaign.... There's Tom, writing at the desk by his window. Hello, Tommy!" Isabelle waved a handgayly at the balcony above them. Vickers smiled at the disconnectedremarks, so like Isabelle. Her conversation was a loose bundle ofimpressions, reflections, wishes, and feelings, especially her feelingsabout other people. And Isabelle had a taste for lame cats, as her mothersaid, --at least those cats that obviously felt their lameness. 

"You don't like Tom, " she rambled on. "Why not? Poor Tommy! he's so sweetand clever. Why don't you like Tom, Vickers? You must like him--becausehe'll be here a lot, and I am awfully fond of him. "

"Why 'poor Tom'?" Vickers asked laconically. 

"He's had such a hard time, a struggle to get on, --his people were poor, very nice though, --the best Virginia, you know.... He's ambitious, and heisn't strong. If this play shouldn't go--he's counting on it so much!"

Vickers smilingly drew her hand beneath his arm and led her out through thegarden into the meadow. "The same old Belle after all, " he murmured. "Idon't see that Brother Cairy is badly off, --he has a good deal of petting, I fancy. I have heard all about that Virginia childhood and the rest ofit.... Do you remember, Belle, when we used to go over to the Ed Prices'and were scared when we saw a tramp in the bushes on the hill? And how weran through the willows as if the devil was after us?--Who have the EdPrices' farm now?"

"Don't you know that father gave it to Alice Johnston? Wasn't it nice ofhim! Her husband is in the road, in St. Louis, doing very well, John says. Alice is over there now, --she brings the children on for the summer.... Idon't see much of her--she is so enveloped in children!"

"What's become of the brother, --the one I licked and threw into Beaty'spond?"

"The world seems to have licked him, too, " Isabelle replied, laughing atthe old memory. "The last time Alice spoke of him she said he was on somenewspaper in Spokane, had been in the Klondike, I believe.... There's Mr. Gossom and Tom! We must go back for breakfast. "

"Thanks! I have had mine. I think I'll walk over to the Price place and seeAlice. Don't look for me before noon. "

"But there are people coming for luncheon, " Isabelle protested. 

Vickers waved his hand to her and called back, "I think you'll get on verywell without me!"

Isabelle was already answering Cairy's shout from the terrace. As Vickerstook his way through the meadow, he thought how sweet she was, the realIsabelle, when one got to her as he had this morning. But she had neveronce mentioned John; her husband seemed to be very little in her mind. 

CHAPTER XLV

Vickers strode off through the meadow that morning in the hope of findingfamiliar things, and indulging in old memories. The country roads had beenwidened and improved, and many of the farm-houses had given way to more orless pretentious "places. " Motors whirled past him. The hill that heremembered as a veritable mountain was a mere rise in the straightened roadover which a fast car plunged at full speed, covering him with dust andleaving behind a sickening odor. He struck off into a wood-lot; here and inthe pastures and meadows he found himself again. It was nearly noon beforehe came up the lane that led to the Ed Price farm. 

This was off the beat of the motors, away from the new "estates, " at theend of a grassy road bordered by gray birches. The ample old house heremembered very well with its square central chimney and stretch ofoutbuildings that joined the yellow barn. At his knock a broad-shouldered, smiling woman came to the door, and after a moment's hesitationexclaimed:--

"Why, Vick, --can it be you?"

"Yes, Cousin Alice. "

She led him to the orchard in the rear, where with the aid of two littleboys she was preparing vegetables for dinner. Tying on a large apron, shesaid:--

"You see we all have to take a hand. Won't you have a bib and dip in, too?... Children, this is your uncle--cousin. Which is it, Vickers?"

It was pleasant in the long grass under the apple tree, looking across theorchard of gnarled and stubby trees to the lane. Mrs. Johnston worked andtalked, while the little boys with furtive glances pecked at the peas liketwo birds. 

"I heard you were coming--I did not know just when. It is good to see youback, Vick!"

There was a comfortable largeness in the atmosphere of this woman, whichsuited the homely background of the square farm-house and the peacefulorchard. And there was a pleasant warmth in her tone. 

"How do you find it?" she asked; "or perhaps you haven't had time yet toknow. "

"It hardly seems like being home, " Vickers admitted, "everything is sochanged--everything but this!" he added gratefully, thinking of Alice aswell as the farm. 

"Yes, --the country has changed, so many rich people have bought places. Andyour old home--" She hesitated to complete her sentence. 

"I can't find my way around there. " Vickers laughed. "What would theColonel say!"

Alice looked as if she preferred not to think what the Colonel might say ofhis daughter's alterations. 

"I suppose Isabelle had to have more room, --she has so many people withher. And you will find that life has changed over here in ten years. "

"Nothing but change!"

"Except among the poor! ... No, Tot, you can't eat the pods. There, boys, take sister and run out to the barn to help Charlie wash the buggy.... Howdoes Isabelle seem to you?"

"I scarcely know--I haven't made up my mind. How does she seem to _you_?"

"She does too much, --she's not strong enough, " Alice replied evasively. 

"No, she doesn't seem strong; but she can't keep still!"

"She gets so little comfort out of anything, --that is the worst of it. Sometimes I wish John weren't so strong, --that he would have an illness, sothat Isabelle would have something definite to do. "

"She would have a trained nurse!" Vickers suggested with a laugh. 

"She is such a dear, --I wish she were happier!"

"Perhaps that isn't in the blood. "

"But I never saw a happier creature than she was the day she was married!And John is a fine fellow, and she has everything a woman could want. "

"A woman wants a good many things these days. "... 

They chatted on about Isabelle and her love of people, and then about St. Louis and the old days at Grafton. For the first time since he had landed, it seemed to Vickers, he was permitted to ignore his failure, --he was athome. When he rose to go, Alice protested:--

"But you aren't going back, --it is just our dinner-time, and we haven'tsaid half what we have to say!"

So he dined with the brood of children in the large front room, andafterwards Alice walked down the lane with him. 

"I hope you are going to stay here?" she asked warmly. 

"Oh, I don't know! America doesn't seem to need me, " he replied, endeavoring to joke; "not that I know any place which does. I am waiting tobe called. "

In spite of the joking manner there was sadness in the voice. Alice wassilent for a time and then replied earnestly:--

"Perhaps you are called here--for the present. "

"You mean over there?" he asked quickly, nodding in the direction ofGrafton. 

"Yes!"

"Why do you think so?"

"You know Isabelle really cares for you as she doesn't for any one else inthe world!"

"Yes, --we have always been close. "

"But she cares for what you _think_--"

Vickers made a gesture, as if it were impossible that any one could dothat. 

"Yes, " Alice continued gently; "a woman never gets wholly away from theinfluence of one she has admired as Isabelle admired you. "

"But one's experience, " he mused, "no matter how costly it has been, neverseems to be of any use to any one else. "

"Can you tell--until the end? ... What we don't see in life is so much morethan what we see!"

Vickers looked at her gratefully. He would like to feel that he was neededsomewhere in this hurried world. Presently there was a childish uproarbehind them, and Alice turned back. 

"My brood is getting tempestuous; I must say good-by!"

She held Vickers's hand in her warm, firm grasp. 

"I hope we shall see you often.... I think that you are called here!"

Vickers returned to the Farm, thinking of Alice Johnston. She had given himof her peace, of her confidence, her large way of taking the issues oflife. 'And I used to say that she was a commonplace dumpy country girl!' hemused. He pondered what she had spoken, --the suggestion, vague butcomforting, of purpose, of a place for him in the world to fill. Just whatwas she thinking of? "We'll see, " he murmured, as he mounted the steps ofthe terrace. As Alice had said, the unseen in life was so much more thanthe seen. 

 * * * * *

In the formal garden the pretty little English governess was conducting thesocial game for the two girls. Marian Lane, having shown Delia her pony andher rabbits without eliciting much enthusiasm, now sat and stared at herwith politely suppressed scorn for the dull red frock that Vickers haddesigned for his charge. 

"Have you been to dancing school?" she demanded. 

"What is that?" Delia asked. 

She was dully uncomfortable in the company of this very dainty littlecreature, who was always dressed in delicate, light fabrics, and seemed tohave many possessions. And Miss Betterton had a well-bred manner of puttingthe stranger outside the little social game. So when Delia spied Vickers, she cried, "There's father!" and ran towards him. 

"Uncle Vickers is not Mabel's father, " Marian asserted to Miss Betterton. 

"Hush, dearie!" the well-bred Miss Betterton replied; "we mustn't talkabout that. "

When Isabelle and Cairy came up to the house from their afternoon ride, they found Vickers playing croquet with Miss Betterton and the two littlegirls, who in his society were approaching something like informality intheir manner of addressing each other. 

"He looks quite domestic, " Cairy jeered. 

"Hello, Vick! Come over and see the horses, " Isabelle called. 

At the stable Marian's new pony that Cairy had selected was exhibited. Lanedrove up with a friend he had brought from the city for the week end, andthe party played with the pony and laughed at his tricks, which Cairyshowed off. 

"He looks like a cross between an Angora cat and a Newfoundland dog, " Cairyremarked, leaning down to feel of his legs. As he stooped the ivory handleof a small revolver pushed out of the hip pocket of his riding breeches. 

"What's that, Uncle Tom?" Marian asked, pointing to the pistol. 

Cairy drew out the pistol and held it up, with a slight flourish, --"Afamily weapon!"

Holding the pony with one hand and pointing the revolver at a blossom on amagnolia tree a few paces away, he fired and the white petals camefluttering down. A second report and another blossom fell. The pony jumpedand snorted, but it did not disturb Cairy's aim. A third blossom fell, andthen he quickly shot the descending bud which had been cut by the previousshot. 

"Steady hand!" Lane commented. 

"It's an old habit of mine to carry it and practise when I have a chance, "Cairy remarked, breaking the revolver. After extracting the shells, hehanded the pistol to Isabelle. 

"Made in Paris, " she read from the chased plate. 

"Yes; it's a pretty toy, don't you think?"

"It's a curious shell, " Lane remarked, picking up one of the empty shellsfrom the ground. 

"Yes, I have to have them specially made, " replied Cairy. The toy washanded around and much admired. 

"But, Uncle Tom, " Marian asked, "why do you carry a pistol?"

"In the South gentlemen always carry pistols. "

"Is it very dangerous in the South?" the little girl inquired. Then theolder people laughed, and Cairy looked rather foolish. 

CHAPTER XLVI

Isabelle's house appeared to Vickers more like a comfortable country clubor a small country inn than the home of a private family. There were peoplecoming and going all the time. Isabelle seemed at a loss without a peopledbackground. "And they are all interesting, " she said to her brother, with atouch of pride. "It's the only place Dickie will stay in for any time, --hesays I have the best collection of fakes he knows. But he likes to chatterwith them. " So far as Vickers could discover there was no special principleof selection in the conglomerate, except the vague test of being"interesting. " Besides Gossom and Cairy and the Silvers and others of theirkind there were Lane's business friends, officers of the railroad, and menthat Lane brought out to golf with or ride with. "We don't go in forsociety, " Isabelle explained, affecting a stronger indifference than shereally felt for "merely smart people. " She wished her brother to know thatshe had profited by her two years of New York life to gather about herintellectual people, and there was much clever talk at the Farm, to whichVickers paid an amused and bewildered attention. 

From the quiet corner where Vickers looked on at the household these autumndays, he watched especially his brother-in-law. Lane could be at the Farmonly for occasional days, and while there spent his time out of doors. Hetook small part in all the talk, but it amused him as might the vivacity ofchildren. He left this personal side of life to Isabelle, content to be apassive spectator of the little game she was playing; while, as Vickersjudged from what Gossom and other men said, Lane himself had a moreabsorbing, more exacting game in the city, which he was playing witheminent success. "He's getting close to the king row, " Isabelle remarked toVickers. "He was offered the presidency of some road of other out West. Butwe couldn't go out there again to live!"

Of all the men and women who came and went at the Farm, Cairy was on themost familiar footing. "He likes to work here, " Isabelle explained withpride, "and he amuses John more than most of them. Besides he's very usefulabout the place!" Surely Cairy was pleasantly installed, as Conny wouldhave said. He was delightful with the governess, who admired his lightconversation, and he selected the pony for Molly, and taught her how tofall off gracefully. At domestic moments, which were rare, he effacedhimself. He had a curious position in the household that puzzled Vickers. He was accepted, --the wheels ran around him. Isabelle treated him with ajesting, frank intimacy, very much as she treated her brother. And Lane, Vickers decided, had distinctly more use for the limping Southerner than hehad for most of the people at the house, including his brother-in-law. Cairy was so completely out of Lane's world of men that there were nostandards of comparison for him. 

"Tommy distracts John, " Isabelle explained to Vickers. "If he only couldplay golf, I suspect John would steal him from me. "

As the weeks passed, however, Cairy was drawn to the city for longerintervals. The new play had not been a "Broadway success, " in fact had beentaken off after a short run, and Cairy's money affairs were again becomingprecarious, much to Isabella's frank concern. "It's the wretched conditionof the theatre in our country, " she complained; "to think that a fewmiserable newspaper writers can ruin the chances of a dramatist's beingheard! The managers become panicky, if it doesn't go at once in NewYork.... There is a chance that they will put it on again somewhere West. But Tom hasn't much hope. "

"It was a poor play, " Fosdick asserted flatly. "And if you hadn't heard itline by line from Tommy, you'd know it. "

"No, " Isabelle protested; "it's lots cleverer than most things. "

"I do not know how it may be with the theatre, " Gossom put in at thispoint, "but more literature is produced in America to-day than at any othertime in the world's history!"

"Oh!"

"I don't mean mere rhetoric, college writing, " Gossom went on dogmatically;"but literature, things with blood to them in the language people use. Why, in the story contest for the _People's_ there were at least fourteenmasterpieces submitted, and not one of them had any reference to Europe, orshowed the least trace of what college professors call style!" He turnedtriumphantly to Vickers, to whom he had previously expressed his convictionthat America was the future home of all the arts. This was an idea in hispatriotic creed. 

"Fourteen masterpieces, --really!" drawled Fosdick; "and how much amasterpiece, please? I must send you mine. "

They had heard a good deal this week about the famous story contest for the_People's_. Gossom, ignoring the gibe, continued:--

"We publish every month real literature, the kind that comes from theheart, the stuff of real human lives. I am tired of this silly whine aboutthe lack of opportunities for genius in our country. "

"It's hard on Tommy, all the same, " Isabelle concluded irrelevantly. 

 * * * * *

When Isabelle moved to New York for the winter, Vickers took Delia ConryWest, and on his return after a few days in the city went up to the Farm, where Miss Betterton and Marian were still staying. He felt relieved to getback once more in the country that was now beginning its quiet preparationfor winter. New York had overwhelmed him. And he could not but see that inthe city he was something of a problem to his beautiful sister. She wouldnot hear of his going to a hotel, and yet he was in the way. Vickers wasnot one to make an impression. And one must make an impression of some sortin Isabelle's world. "He's quaint, your brother, " one of her friends said. "But he's locked up and the key is lost. Most people won't take the time tohunt for keys or even open doors. "

If he had been more the artist, had some _reclame_ from his music or hisfather's money, he would have fitted in. But a subdued little man with asandy beard, sunken eyes, and careless clothes, --no, he was queer, but not"interesting"! And Isabelle, in spite of her strong sisterly loyalty, wasrelieved when she saw him off at the station. 

"It's nice to think of you, Vickie, snugged away in the country, goingaround in your velveteens with a pipe in your mouth. Keep an eye on Mollyand don't flirt with Miss Betterton. I shall run up often, and you mustcome down for the opera when you want to hear some music. "

So Vickers betook himself to his seclusion. And when he did run down forthe opera, he found himself jostled in a worse jam of Isabelle'soccupations than before. Although she had just recovered from her yearlyattack of grippe, and felt perpetually tired and exhausted, she kept upwith her engagement list, besides going once a week to her boys' club, where Cairy helped her. Seeing her tired, restless face, Vickers asked herwhy she did it all. 

"I should die if I sat back!" she answered irritably. "But I'll go up tothe Farm with you for a day or two.... There's the masseuse--you'll findsome cigarettes in the drawer--don't forget we dine early. "... 

When they reached the Farm the next afternoon, little Marian met them inthe hall, dressed like a white doll. "How do you do, Mamma?" she said veryprettily. "I am so glad to see you. " And she held up her face to be kissed. The little girl had thought all day of her mother's coming, but she had notdared to ask the governess to meet her at the station; for "Mamma has notarranged it so. " Isabelle looked at her daughter critically, and said inFrench to the English governess, "Too pale, my darling, --does she take herride each day?"

Everything about the child's life was perfectly arranged, all thought out, from her baths and her frocks and her meals to the books she read and thefriends she should have. But to Vickers, who stood near, it seemed astrange meeting between mother and child. 

That evening as Isabelle lay with a new novel before the blazing fire, toolistless to read, Vickers remarked:--"A month of this would make you over, sis!"

"A month! I couldn't stand it a week, even with you, Bud!"

"You can't stand the other. "

"Come! The rest cure idea is exploded. The thing to do nowadays is to varyyour pursuits, employ different sets of nerve centres!" Isabelle quoted thefamous Potts with a mocking smile. "You should see how I vary myactivities, --I use a different group of cells every half hour. You don'tknow how well I look after the family, too. I don't neglect my job. Aren'tyou comfortable here? Mary cooks very well, I think. "

"Oh, Mary is all right.... You may shift the batteries, Belle, but you areburning up the wires, all the same. "

"Let 'em burn, then, --I've got to live! ... You see, Vickie, I am not thelittle girl you remember. I've grown up! When I was _down_ after Mariancame, I did such a lot of thinking.... I was simple when I married, Vick. Ithought John and I would spoon out the days, --at least read together and begreat chums. But it didn't turn out that way; you can't live that sort oflife these days, and it would be stupid. Each one has to develop histalent, you see, and then combine the gifts. John thinks and breathes therailroad. And when he's off duty, he wants to exercise or go to the theatreand see some fool show. That's natural, too, --he works hard. But I can't do_his_ things, --so I do _my_ things. He doesn't care.... To tell the truth, Vick, I suspect John wouldn't miss me before the month's bills were due, ifI should elope to-night!"

"I am not so sure, Belle. "

"Of course--don't I know? That must be the case with most marriages, andit's a good thing, perhaps. "

Vickers suggested softly, "The Colonel's way was good, too. "

"Women didn't expect much those days. They do now. Even the architectsrecognize the change in our habits. "

"I don't believe the architects have made any changes for Alice. "

"Oh, Alice!" Isabelle pished. "She is just a mother. "

"And the millions of others, men and women?"

"They copy those on top as fast as they can; the simple life is eithercompulsory or an affectation.... I don't care for the unexpressivemillions!"

(A Cairy phrase--Vickers recognized the mint. )

Isabelle rose, and drawing aside the curtains, looked out at the snowygardens. 

"See how stunning the poplars are against the white background! Do youremember, Vick, when we ran away from school and came up here together andspent two nights while they were telegraphing all over for us? What adifferent world! ... Well, good night, Buddie, --I must sleep up. "

Yes, thought Vickers, as he lighted another cigarette, what a differentworld! That summed up the months since he had taken the steamer atCherbourg. And what different people! Had he stood still while Isabelle andher friends had expanded, thrown off limitations? For her and the manyothers like her the intoxicating feast of life seemed to have been spreadlavishly. With full purses and never sated appetites they rushed to thetables, --all running, out of breath, scenting opportunities, avid to know, to feel, to experience! "We are passing through another renaissance, " asGossom had pompously phrased it. But with what a difference!

To-night as Vickers looked across the still white fields from his bedroomwindow, he was less concerned with the national aspect of the case thanwith what this renaissance meant to his sister. Even with the aid of thegreat Potts she could never keep the nerve-racking pace that she had setherself. And yet in actual expenditure of force, either mental or physical, what Isabelle did or any of her acquaintance did was not enough to tirehealthy, full-grown women. There was maladjustment somewhere. What ailedthis race that was so rapidly becoming neurasthenic as it flowered?

One thing was plain, --that so far as emotional satisfaction went Isabelle'smarriage was null, merely a convention like furniture. And John, as Vickersrecognized in spite of his brother-in-law's indifference to him, was a goodhusband. Fortunately Isabelle, in spite of all her talk, was not the kindto fill an empty heart with another love.... A suspicion of that hadcrossed his mental vision, but had faded almost at once.... Isabelle wasanother sort!

CHAPTER XLVII

Isabelle had agreed to stay out the week with Vickers, and in spite of herrestlessness, her desire to be doing something new, the old self inher--the frank, girlish, affectionate self--revived, as it always did whenshe was alone with her brother. He said:--

"I am coming to agree with Potts, Isabelle; you need to elope. "

As she looked up, startled, he added, "With me! I'll take you to SouthAmerica and bring you back a new woman. "

"South America, --no thanks, brother. "

"Then stay here. "... 

That evening Isabelle was called to the telephone, and when she came backher face was solemn. 

"Percy Woodyard died last night, --pneumonia after grippe. Too bad! Ihaven't seen him this winter; he has been very delicate.... I must go infor the funeral. "

"I thought you and Cornelia were intimate, " Vickers remarked; "but Ihaven't heard you mention her name since I've been home. "

"We were, at first; but I haven't seen much of her the last two years.... Too bad--poor Percy! Conny has killed him. "

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, she's worked him to death, --made him do this and that. Tom says--"Isabelle hesitated. 

"What does Tom say?"

"Oh, there was a lot of talk about something he did, --went off to Europetwo years ago, and let some politicians make money--I don't know just what. But he's not been the same since, --he had to drop out of politics. "

This and something more Isabelle had learned from Cairy, who had heard thegossip among men. Woodyard was too unimportant a man to occupy the publiceye, even when it was a question of a "gigantic steal, " for more than a fewbrief hours. By the time the Woodyards had returned from that journey toEurope, so hastily undertaken, the public had forgotten about the NorthernMill Company's franchise. But the men who follow things and remember, knew;and Percy Woodyard, when he sailed up the bay on his return in October, realized that politically he was buried, --that is, in the manner ofpolitics he cared about. And he could never explain, not to his mostintimate friend, how he had happened to desert his post, to betray thetrust of men who trusted him. It was small satisfaction to believe that itwould all have happened just as it had, even if he had been there to blockthe path of the determined majority. 

When, towards the end of their stay abroad, a letter had come from theSenator in regard to "that post in the diplomatic service, " Percy hadflatly refused to consider it. 

"But why, Percy?" his wife had asked gently, --she was very sweet with himsince their departure from New York. "We can afford it, --you know myproperty is paying very well. "

In the look that Percy gave her, Conny saw that her husband had plumbed herfarther than she had ever dreamed him capable of doing, and she trembled. 

"I am going back to New York to practise my profession, " Percy saidshortly. "And we shall live henceforth on _my_ earnings, solely. "

So he had gone back to his office and taken up his practice. He was adelicate man, and the past year had strained him. His practice was notlarge or especially profitable. The franchise scandal stood in his way, andthough he succeeded in securing some of the corporation practice that hehad once scorned, his earnings were never sufficient to support theestablishment Conny had created. In fact that able mistress of domesticfinance increased the establishment by buying a place at Lancaster fortheir country home. She was weaving a new web for her life and Percy's, thepolitical one having failed, and no doubt she would have succeeded thistime in making the strands hold, had it not been for Percy's delicatehealth. He faded out, the inner fire having been quenched.... 

At the funeral Isabelle was surprised to see Cairy. Without knowinganything exactly about it, she had inferred that in some way Conny hadtreated Tom "badly, " and she had not seen him the last times she had beenat the Woodyards'. But that had not been lately. Somehow they had driftedapart these last two years, --their paths had diverged in the great socialwhirlpool ever more and more, though they still retained certain commonfriends, like the Silvers, who exchanged the current small gossip of eachother's doings. Isabelle was thinking of this and many other things aboutPercy and Conny as she waited in the still drawing-room for the funeralservice to begin. She had admired Conny extravagantly at first, and nowthough she tried to think of her in her widowhood sympathetically, shefound it impossible to pity her; while of poor Percy, who it seemed "hadbeen too much under his wife's thumb, " she thought affectionately.... Thehall and the two rooms on this floor where the people had gathered wereexquisitely prepared. Isabelle could see Conny's masterly hand in itall.... 

When the service was over, Isabelle waited to speak with Conny, who hadasked her to stay. She saw Cairy go out behind the Senator, who lookedproperly grave and concerned, his black frock-coat setting off the thickwhite hair on the back of his head. 

 * * * * *

The two men walked down the street together, and the Senator, who had metCairy at the Woodyards' a number of times and remembered him as an inmateof the house, fell to talking about the dead man. 

"Poor chap!" he said meditatively; "he had fine talents. "

"Yes, " assented Cairy. "It was a shame!" His tone left it doubtful justwhat was a shame, but the Senator, assuming that it was Percy's untimelydeath, continued:--

"And yet Woodyard seemed to lack something to give practical effectivenessto his abilities. He did not have the power to 'seize that tide which leadsmen on to victory, '--to size up the situation comprehensively, you know. "(The Senator was fond of quoting inaccurately and then paraphrasing fromhis own accumulated wisdom. )

"I doubt very much, " he went on expansively, "if he would have counted foras much as he did--as he promised at one time to count at any rate--if ithad not been for his wife. Mrs. Woodyard is a very remarkable woman!"

"Yes, she is a strong personality, --she was the stronger of the twoundoubtedly. "

"She has one of the ablest business heads that I know of, " the Senator saidemphatically, nodding his own head. "She should have been a man. "

"One would miss a good deal--if she were a man, " suggested Cairy. 

"Her beauty, --yes, very striking. But she has the brain of a man. "

"She is the sort that must make destiny, " agreed Cairy, feeling a literarysatisfaction in the phrase and also pride that he could so generously playchorus to the Senator's praise. "I fancy she will marry again!"

He wondered at the moment whether the Senator might not venture now tobreak his long widowerhood. The great man, stopping on the step of hisclub, remarked in a curious voice:--

"I suppose so, --she is young and beautiful, and would naturally notconsider her life ended. And yet--she is not exactly the sort of woman aman marries--unless he is very young!"

With a nod and a little smile the Senator went briskly up the steps of hisclub. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

The time, almost the very minute, when Isabelle realized the peculiarfeeling she had come to have for Cairy, was strangely clear to her. It wasshortly after Percy Woodyard's funeral. She had been to Lakewood with hermother, and having left her comfortably settled in her favorite hotel, hadtaken the train for New York. Tom was to go to the theatre with her thatevening, and had suggested that they dine at a little down-town restauranthe used to frequent when he was Gossom's slave. He was to meet her at theferry. 

She had been thinking of Percy Woodyard, of Fosdick's epithet forConny, --the Vampire. And there flashed across her the thought, 'She willtry to get Tom back!' (Cairy had told her that he had gone to the funeralbecause Conny had written him a little note. ) 'And she is so bad for him, so bad for any man!' Then looking out on the brown March landscape, shefelt a pleasant glow of expectation, of something desirable in immediateprospect, which she did not at once attribute to anything more definitethan the fact she was partly rested, after her two days at Lakewood. Butwhen in the stream of outgoing passengers that filled the echoing terminalshe caught sight of Tom's face, looking expectantly over the heads of thecrowd, a vivid ray of joy darted through her. 

'He's here!' she thought. 'He has come across the ferry to meet me!'

She smiled and waved the bunch of violets she was wearing--those he hadsent down to Lakewood for her--above the intervening heads. 

"I thought I would snatch a few more minutes, " he explained, as they walkedslowly through the long hall to the ferry. 

The bleak March day had suddenly turned into something warm and gay forher; the dreary terminal was a spot to linger in. 

"That was very nice of you, " she replied gently, "and so are these!"

She held up his flowers, and in the look they exchanged they went far inthat progress of emotional friendship, the steps of which Cairy knew sowell.... The city was already lighted, tier on tier of twinkling dots inthe great hives across the river, and as they sat out on the upper deck ofthe ferry for the sake of fresh air, Isabelle thought she had never seenthe city so marvellous. There was an enchantment in the moving lights onthe river, the millions of fixed lights in the long city. The scent of seawater reached them, strong and vital, with its ever witching associationsof far-off lands. Isabelle turned and met Cairy's eyes looking intently ather. 

"You seem so joyous to-night!" he said almost reproachfully. 

She smiled at him softly. 

"But I am! Very happy!--it is good to be here. "

That was it, --the nearest description of her feeling, --it was all so good. She was so much alive! And as she settled back against the hard seat, shethought pleasantly of the hours to come, the dinner, the play, and then Tomwould take her home and they would talk it over.... She had asked John togo with her. But he had declined on the ground that "he could not standIbsen, " and "he didn't like that little Russian actress. " Really, he wasgetting very lazy, Isabelle had thought. He would probably smoke too manycigars, yawn over a book, and go to bed at ten. That was what he usuallydid unless he went out to a public dinner, or brought home work from theoffice, or had late business meetings. Nothing for his wife, she hadcomplained once.... 

This wonderful feeling of light-hearted content continued as they walkedthrough dingy streets to the old brick building that housed the restaurant, half cafe, half saloon, where the Irish wife of the Italian proprietorcooked extraordinary Italian dishes, according to Cairy. He was pensive. Hehad been generally subdued this winter on account of the failure of hisplay. And, after all, the London opening had not come about. It wasdistinctly "his off year"--and he found it hard to work. "Nothing so takesthe ideas out of you as failure, " he had said, "and nothing makes you feelthat you can do things like success. "

Isabelle wanted to help him; she was afraid that he was being troubledagain by lack of money. Art and letters were badly paid, and Tom, she wasforced to admit, was not provident. 

"But you are happy to-night, " she had said coaxingly on the ferry. "We aregoing to be very gay, and forget things!" That was what Tom did forher, --made her forget things, and return to the mood of youth where allseemed shining and gay. She did that for him, too, --amused and distractedhim, with her little impetuosities and girlish frankness. "You are such agood fellow--you put heart into a man, " he had said. 

She was happy that she could affect him, could really influence a man whosetalent she admired, whom she believed in. 

"I can't do anything to John except make him yawn!" she had replied. 

So to-night she devoted her happy mood to brushing away care from Cairy'smind, and by the time they were seated at the little table with its coarse, wine-stained napkin, he was laughing at her, teasing her about growingstout, of which she pretended to be greatly afraid. 

"Oh, dear!" she sighed. "I stand after meals and roll and roll, and Mrs. Peet pounds me until I am black and blue, but it's no use. I am gaining!Tommy, you'll have to find some younger woman to say your pretty things to. I am growing frightfully homely! ... That's one comfort with John, --he'llnever know it. "

As the meal passed their mood became serious once more and tender, as ithad been when they met. Cairy, lighting cigarette after cigarette, talkedon, about himself. He was very despondent. He had made a hard fight forrecognition; he thought he had won. And then had come discouragement afterdiscouragement. It looked as if he should be obliged to accept an offerfrom a new magazine that was advertising its way into notice and do somearticles for them. No, he would not go back to be Gossom's privatemouthpiece at any price!

He did not whine, --Cairy never did that exactly; but he presented himselffor sympathy. The odds had been against him from the start. And Isabellewas touched by this very need for sunshine in the emotional temperament ofthe man. Conny had appraised the possibilities of his talent intelligently, believed that if properly exploited he should "arrive. " But Isabelle wasmoved by the possibilities of his failure, --a much more dangerous state ofmind.... 

It was long past the time for the theatre, but Cairy made no move. It waspleasantly quiet in the little room. The few diners had left long ago, andthe debilitated old waiter had retreated to the bar. Cairy had said, "If itwere not for you, for what you give me--" And she had thought, 'Yes, what I_might_ give him, what he needs! And we are so happy together here. '... 

Another hour passed. The waiter had returned and clattered dishessuggestively and departed again. Cairy had not finished saying all hewanted to say.... There were long pauses between his words, of which eventhe least carried feeling. Isabelle, her pretty mutinous face touched withtenderness, listened, one hand resting on the table. Cairy covered the handwith his, and at the touch of his warm fingers Isabelle flushed. Was it themood of this day, or something deeper in her nature that thrilled at thistouch as she had never thrilled before in her life? It held her therelistening to his words, her breath coming tightly. She wanted to run away, and she did not move.... The love that he was telling her she seemed tohave heard whispering in her heart long before.... 

The way to Isabelle's heart was through pity, the desire to give, as withmany women. Cairy felt it instinctively, and followed the path. Few men canblaze their way to glory, but all can offer the opportunity to a woman ofsplendid sacrifice in love!

"You know I care!" she had murmured. "But, oh, Tom--" That "but" and thesigh covered much, --John, the little girl, the world as it is. If she couldonly give John what she felt she could give this man, with his pleadingeyes that said, 'With you I should be happy, I should conquer!'

"I know--I ask for nothing!"

(Nothing! Oh, damnable lover's lie! Do the Cairys ever content themselveswith nothings?)

"I will do as you say--in all things. We will forget this talk, or I willnot go back to the Farm; but I am glad we understand!"

"No, no, " she said quickly. "You must come to the Farm! It must be just asit has been. " She knew as she said the words that it could never be "as ithad been. " She liked to close her eyes now to the dark future; but afterto-day, after this new sense of tenderness and love, the old complexion oflife must be different. 

Cairy still held her hand. As she looked up with misty eyes, very happy andvery miserable, a little figure came into the empty room followed by thewaiter, and glanced aimlessly about for a table. 

"Vick!" Isabelle cried in astonishment. "Where did you come from?"

Vickers had a music score under his arm, and he tapped it as he stood abovethem at the end of their table. 

"I've been trying over some things with Lester at his rooms, and came infor a bite. I thought you were going to the theatre, Belle?"

"We are!" Cairy exclaimed, looking at his watch. "We'll about get the lastact!"

Vickers fingered his roll and did not look at Isabelle. Suddenly shecried:--

"Take me home, Vick! ... Good-night, Tom!"

She hurried nervously from the place. Vickers hailed a cab, and as theyrode up town neither spoke at first. Then Vickers put his hand on hers andheld it very tightly. She knew that he had seen--her tear-stained eyes andCairy's intent face, --that he had seen and understood. 

"Vick, " she moaned, "why is it all such a muddle? Life--what you mean todo, and what you can do! John doesn't care, doesn't understand.... I'm sucha fool, Vick!" She leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed. He caressedher hand gently, saying nothing. 

He was sure now that he was called somewhere on this earth. 

CHAPTER XLIX

When Lane went West early in May for his annual inspection trip, Isabellemoved to the Farm for the season. She was wan and listless. She had talkedof going abroad with Vickers, but had suddenly given up the plan. A box ofbooks arrived with her, and she announced to Vickers that she meant to readItalian with him; she must do something to kill the time. But the firstevening when she opened a volume of French plays, she dropped it; bookscould not hold her attention any more. All the little details about herhouse annoyed her, --nothing went smoothly. The governess must be changed. Her French was horrible. Marian followed her mother about with great eyes, fearful of annoying her, yet fascinated. Isabelle exclaimed in suddenirritation:

"Haven't you anything to do, Molly!" And to Vickers she complained:"Children nowadays seem perfectly helpless. Unless they are provided withamusement every minute, they dawdle about, waiting for you to do somethingfor them. Miss Betterton should make Molly more independent. "

And the next day in a fit of compunction she arranged to have a children'sparty, sending the motor for some ten-mile-away neighbors. 

In her mood she found even Vickers unsatisfactory: "Now you have me here, cooped up, you don't say a word to me. You are as bad as John. Thatportentous silence is a husband's privilege, Vick.... You and I used to_jaser_ all the time. Other men don't find me dull, anyway. They tell methings!"

She pouted like a child. Vickers recalled that when she had said somethinglike this one day at breakfast with John and Cairy present, Lane had liftedhis head from his plate and remarked with a quiet man's irony: "The othermen are specials, --they go on for an occasion. The husband's is a steadyjob. "

Cairy had laughed immoderately. Isabelle had laughed with him, --"Yes, Isuppose you are all alike; you would slump every morning at breakfast. "

This spring Isabelle had grown tired, even of people. "Conny wants to comenext month, and I suppose I must have her. I wanted Margaret, but she hasgot to take the little boy up to some place in the country and can'tcome.... There's a woman, now, " she mused to Vickers, her mind departing ona train of association with Margaret Pole. "I wonder how she possiblystands life with that husband of hers. He's getting worse all the time. Drinks now! Margaret asked me if John could give him something in therailroad, and John sent him out to a place in the country where he would beout of harm.... There's marriage for you! Margaret is the most intelligentwoman I know, and full of life if she had only half a chance to expressherself. But everything is ruined by that mistake she made years ago. If Iwere she--" Isabelle waved a rebellious hand expressively. "I thought atone time that she was in love with Rob Falkner, --she saw a lot of him. Buthe has gone off to Panama. Margaret won't say a word about him; perhaps sheis in love with him still, --who knows!"

One day she looked up from a book at Vickers, who was at the piano, andobserved casually:--

"Tom is coming up to spend June when he gets back from the South. " Shewaited for an expected remark, and then added, "If you dislike him as muchas you used to, you had better take that time for Fosdick. "

"Do you want me to go?"

"No, --only I thought it might be more comfortable for you--"

"Cairy doesn't make me uncomfortable. "

"Oh--well, you needn't worry about me, brother dear!" She blushed and cameacross the room to kiss him. "I am well harnessed; I shan't break thetraces--yet. "... 

It was a summerish day, and at luncheon Isabelle seemed less moody than shehad been since her arrival. "Let's take one of our old long rides, --justride anywhere, as we used to, " she suggested. 

They talked of many things that afternoon, slipping back into the past andrising again to the present. Vickers, happy in her quieter, gentler mood, talked of himself, the impressions he had received these months in his ownland. 

"What strikes me most, " he said, "at least with the people that I see aboutyou, Belle, is the sharp line between work and play. I see you women all atplay, and I see the men only when they are wearily watching you play orplaying with you. One hears so much about business in America. But with youpeople it is as much suppressed as if your husbands and brothers went offto some other star every day to do their work and came back at night by airship to see their families. "

"Business is dull, " Isabelle explained, --"most men's business. They want toforget it themselves when they leave the office. "

"But it is so much a part of life, " Vickers protested, thinking of thehours and days Lane spent absorbed in affairs that Isabelle hadn't thecuriosity to inquire about. 

"Too much over here. "

"And not enough. "... 

On their way home in the cool of the evening, over a hilly road through theleafing woods, their horses walked close together, and Isabelle, putting anarm affectionately on her brother's shoulder, mused:--

"One feels so differently different days. Tell me, Vick, what makes theatmosphere, --the color of life in one's mind? Look over there, along theriver. See all the gray mist and up above on the mountain the purple--andto-morrow it will be gone! Changing, always changing! It's just so insideyou; the color is changing all the time.... There is the old village. Itdoesn't seem to me any longer the place you and I lived in as boy and girl, the place I was married from. "

"It is we who have changed, not Grafton. "

"Of course; it's what we have lived through, felt, --and we can't get back!We can't get back, --that's the sad thing. "

"Perhaps it isn't best to get back altogether. "

Isabelle gave him a curious glance, and then in a hard tone remarked, "Sometimes I think, Vick, that in spite of your experience you are the samesoft, sentimental youth you were before it happened. "

"Not quite. "

"Did you ever regret it, Vick?"

"Yes, " he said bravely, "many times; but I am not so sure now that one canreally regret anything that is done out of one's full impulse. "

"Well, --that was different, " Isabelle remarked vaguely. "Did you everconsider, Vick, that marriage is an awful problem for a woman, --any womanwho has individuality, who thinks? ... A man takes it easily. If it doesn'tfit, why he hangs it up in the closet, so to speak, and takes it out justas little as he has to. But a woman, --she must wear it pretty much all ofthe time--or give it up altogether. It's unfair to the woman. If she wantsto be loved, and there are precious few women who don't want a man to lovethem, don't want that first of all, and her husband hasn't time to botherwith love, --what does she get out of marriage? I know what you are going tosay! John loves me, when he thinks about it, and I have my child, and I amhappily placed, in very comfortable circumstances, and--"

"I wasn't going to say that, " Vickers interrupted. 

"But, " continued Isabelle, with rising intensity, "you know that hasnothing to do with happiness.... One might as well be married to ahitching-post as to John. Women simply don't count in his life. Sometimes Iwish they did--that he would make me jealous! Give him the railroad andgolf and a man to talk to, and he is perfectly happy.... Where do I comein?"

"Where do you put yourself in?"

"As housekeeper, " she laughed, the mood breaking. "The Johnstons are comingnext week, all eight--or is it nine?--of them. I must go over and see thatthe place is opened.... They live like tramps, with one servant, but theyseem very happy. He is awfully good, but dull, --John is a social lioncompared to Steve Johnston. John says he's very clever in his line. And asfor Alice, she always was big, but she's become enormous. I don't supposeshe ever thinks of anything so frivolous as a waist-line. "

"I thought she had a beautiful face. "

"Vick, I don't believe that you know whether a woman has a figure! Youmight write a _Symphonie Colossale_ with Alice and her brood as the theme. "

"She is Woman, " suggested Vickers. 

"Woman!" Isabelle scoffed. "Why is child-bearing considered thecorner-stone of womanhood? Having young? Cows do that. Women are good forother things, --inspiration, love, perhaps!" She curved her pretty lips ather brother mockingly.... 

There were two telegrams at the house. Isabelle, opening the first, readaloud, "Reach Grafton three thirty, Tuesday. John, " and dropped it on thetable. The other she did not read aloud, but telephoned an answer to thetelegraph office. Later she remarked casually, "Tom finds he can get backearlier; he'll be here by the end of the week. "

CHAPTER L

"There's Steve, " Isabelle said to Vickers, "coming across the meadow withhis boys. He is an old dear, so nice and fatherly!"

The heavy man was plodding slowly along the path, the four boys friskingaround him in the tall June grass like puppies. 

"He has come to see John about some business. Let us take the boys and havea swim in the pool!"

Isabelle was gay and happy this morning with one of those rapid changes inmood over night that had become habitual with her. When they returned fromtheir romp in the pool, the boys having departed to the stable in search offurther amusement, Lane and Johnston were still talking while they slowlypaced the brick terrace. 

"Still at it!" exclaimed Isabelle. "Goodness! what can it be to make Johntalk as fast as that! Why, he hasn't said half as many words to me sincehe's been back. Just look at 'em, Vick!"

 * * * * *

Outside on the terrace Steve Johnston was saying, stuttering in hisendeavor to get hastily all the words he needed to express his feelings:--

"It's no use, Jack! I tell you I am sick of the whole business. I know it'sbig pay, --more than I ever expected to earn in my life. But Alice and Ihave been poor before, and I guess we can be poor again if it comes tothat. "

"A man with your obligations has no right to give up such an opportunity. "

"Alice is with me; we have talked the thing all through.... No, I may be ajackass, but I can't see it any different. I don't like the business ofloading the dice, --that is all. I have stood behind the counter, so tospeak, and seen the dice loaded, fifteen years. But I wasn't responsiblemyself. Now in this new place you offer me I should be IT, --the man wholoads.... I have been watching this thing for fifteen years. When I was arate clerk on the Canada Southern, I could guess how it was, --the littlefellows paid the rate as published and the big fellows didn't. Then when Iwent into the A. And P. I came a step nearer, could watch how it wasdone--didn't have to guess. Then I went with the Texas and Northern asassistant to the traffic manager, and I loaded the dice--under orders. Now--"

"Now, " interrupted Lane, "you'll take your orders from my office. "

"I know it, --that's part of the trouble, Jack!" the heavy man blurted out. "You want a safe man out there, you say. I know what that means! I don'twant to talk good to you, Jack. But you see things differently from me. "... 

"All this newspaper gossip and scandal has got on your nerves, " Lane saidirritably. 

"No, it hasn't. And it isn't any fear of being pulled up before theCommission. That doesn't mean anything to me.... No, I have seen it comingever since I was a clerk at sixty a month. And somehow I felt if it evergot near enough me so that I should have to fix the game--for that's all itamounts to, Jack, and you know it--why, I should have to get out. At lastit's got up to me, and so I am getting out!"

The stolid man puffed with the exertion of expressing himself so fully, inadequate as his confused sentences were to describe all that fermentingmass of observation, impression, revulsion, disgust that his experience inthe rate-making side of his employment had stored up within him the lastfifteen years. Out of it had come a result--a resolve. And it was this thatLane was combating heatedly. It was not merely that he liked Johnstonpersonally and did not want him "to make a fool of himself, " as he hadexpressed it, not altogether because he had made up his mind that the heavyman's qualities were exactly what he needed for this position he hadoffered him; rather, because the unexpected opposition, Johnston'sscruples, irritated him personally. It was a part of the sentimentalnewspaper clamor, half ignorance, half envy, that he despised. When he hadused the words, "womanish hysteria, " descriptive of the agitation againstthe railroads, Steve had protested in the only humorous remark he was everknown to make:--

"Do I look hysterical, Jack?"

So the two men talked on. What they said would not have been whollyunderstood by Isabelle, and would not have interested her. And yet itcontained more elements of pathos, of modern tragedy, than all the novelsshe read and the plays she went to see. The homely, heavy man--"He looksjust like a bag of meal with a yellow pumpkin on top, " Isabelle hadsaid--replied to a thrust by Lane:--

"Yes, maybe I shall fail in the lumber business. It's pretty late to swaphorses at forty-three. But Alice and I have talked it over, and we hadrather run that risk than the other--"

"You mean?"

"That I should do what Satters of the L. P. Has just testified he's beendoing--under orders--to make traffic. "

It was a shrewd blow. Satters was a clear case where the powerful L. P. Road had been caught breaking the rate law by an ingenious device thataroused admiration in the railroad world. He had been fined a few thousanddollars, which was a cheap forfeit. This reference to Satters closed thediscussion. 

"I hope you will find the lumber business all you want it to suit yourconscience, Steve. Come in and have some lunch!"

The heavy man refused, --he was in no mood for one of Isabelle's luncheons, and he had but one more day of vacation. Gathering up his brood, heretraced his way across the meadow, the four small boys following in histrack. 

"Well!" exclaimed Isabelle to her husband. "What was your business allabout? Luncheon has been waiting half an hour. It was as good as a playwatching you two out there. Steve looked really awake. "

"He was awake all right, " Lane replied. 

"Tell us all about it--there, Vick, see if he doesn't put me off with 'Justbusiness, my dear'!"

"It _was_ just business. Steve has declined a good position I made for him, at nearly twice the salary he has ever earned. "

"And all those boys to put through college!"

"What was it?" Vickers asked. 

Something made Lane unusually communicative, --his irritation with Steve orhis wife's taunt. 

"Did you ever hear of the Interstate Commerce Commission?" he asked hisbrother-in-law, in a slightly ironical tone. And he began to state thesituation, and stated it remarkably well from his point of view, explainingthe spirit of interference that had been growing throughout the countrywith railroad management, corporation management in general, --itsdisastrous effect if persisted in, and also "emotionalism" in the press. Hetalked very ably, and held his wife's attention. Isabelle said:--

"But it was rather fine of Steve, if he felt that way!"

"He's kept his mouth shut fifteen years. "

"He's slow, is Steve, but when he sees--he acts!"

Vickers said nothing, but a warm sense of comfort spread through his heart, as he thought, 'Splendid!--she did that for him, Alice. '

"I hope he won't come to grief in the lumber business, " Lane concluded. "Steve is not fitted for general business. And he can't have much capital. Only their savings. "

Then he yawned and went to the library for a cigar, dismissing Steve andhis scruples and the railroad business altogether from his mind, in themanner of a well-trained man of affairs, who has learned that it is auseless waste of energy to speculate on what has been done and to wonderwhy men should feel and act as they do feel and act. 

And Isabelle, with a "It will come hard on Alice!"--went off to cut someflowers for the vases, still light-hearted, humming a gay little Frenchsong that Tom had taught her. 

 * * * * *

If it were hard for Alice Johnston, the large woman did not betray it whenVickers saw her a few days later. With the help of her oldest boy she wasunharnessing the horse from the Concord buggy. 

"You see, " she explained, as Vickers tried to put the head halter on thehorse, "we are economizing on Joe, who used to do the chores when he didnot forget them, which was every other day!"

When Vickers referred to Steve's new business, she said cheerfully:--

"I think there is a good chance of success. The men Steve is going in withhave bought a large tract of land in the southern part of Missouri. Theyhave experience in the lumber business, and Steve is to look after the cityend, --he's well known in St. Louis. "

"I do so hope it will go right, " Vickers remarked, wishing that in some wayhe could help in this brave venture. 

"Yes!" Alice smiled. "It had to be, this risk, --you know there come timeswhen there is only one thing to do. If Steve hadn't taken the step, leftthe railroad, I think that neither of us would have been happy afterwards. But these are anxious days for us. We have put all the money in ourstocking into it, --seven thousand dollars; all we have in the world butthis old farm, which the Colonel gave me. I wanted to mortgage the farm, but Steve wouldn't let me. So all our eggs are in one basket. Not so manyeggs, but we can't spare one!"

She laughed serenely, with a broad sense of humor over the family venture, yet with a full realization of its risk. Vickers marvelled at her strongfaith in Steve, in the future, in life. As he had said to Isabelle, thiswas Woman, one who had learned the deeper lessons of life from herchildren, from her birth-pangs. 

She took him into the vegetable garden which she and the children hadplanted. "We are truck-farmers, " she explained. "I have the potatoes, little Steve the corn, Ezra the peas, and so on to Tot, who looks after thecarrots and beets because they are close to the ground and don't need muchattention. The family is cultivating on shares. "

They walked through the rows of green vegetables that were growing lustilyin the June weather, and then turned back to the house. Alice stopped tofasten up a riotous branch of woodbine that had poked its way through ascreen. 

"If the worst comes to the worst, I shall turn farmer in earnest and raisevegetables for my wealthy neighbors. And there is the orchard! We have beenpoor so much of the time that we know what it means.... I have no doubt itwill come out all right, --and we don't worry, Steve and I. We aren'tambitious enough to worry. "

It was a pleasant place, the Price farm, tucked away in a fold of gentlehills, at the end of a grassy lane. The bees hummed in the apple trees, andthe June breeze swayed through the house, where all the windows and doorswere open. Vickers, looking at the calm, healthy woman sitting beside himon the porch, did not pity the Johnstons, nor fear for them. Alice, surely, was the kind that no great misfortune could live with long. 

"I am really a farmer, --it's all the blood in my veins, " Alice remarked. "And when I get back here summers, the soil seems to speak to me. I'veknown horses and cows and pigs and crops and seasons for centuries. It'sonly skin deep, the city coating, and is easily scraped off.... Yourfather, Vickers, was a wise man. He gave me the exact thing that was bestfor me when he died, --this old farm of my people. Just as he had given methe best thing in my life, --my education. If he had done more, I should beless able to get along now. "

They had dinner, a noisy meal at which the children served in turns, Alicesitting like a queen bee at the head of the table, governing the brood. Vickers liked these midday meals with the chattering, chirping youngsters. 

"And how has it been with the music?" Alice asked. "Have you been able towork? You spent most of the winter up here, didn't you?"

"I have done some things, " Vickers said; "not much. I am not at home yet, and what seems familiar is this, the past. But I shall get broken in, nodoubt. And, " he added thoughtfully, "I have come to see that this is theplace for me--for the present. "

"I am glad, " she said softly. 

CHAPTER LI

As Vickers crossed the village on his way back from the Johnstons', Laneemerged from the telegraph office and joined him. On the rare occasionswhen they were thrown together alone like this, John Lane's taciturnityreached to positive dumbness. Vickers supposed that his brother-in-lawdisliked him, possibly despised him. It was, however, a case of absolutenon-understanding. It must remain forever a problem to the man with a firmgrasp on concrete fact how any one could do what Vickers had done, exceptthrough "woman-weakness, " for which Lane had no tolerance. Moreover, thequiet little man, with his dull eyes, who moved about as if his facultieshad been forgotten in the morning when he got up, who could sit for hoursdawdling at the piano striking chords, or staring at the keys, seemedmerely queer to the man of action. "I wish he would do something, " Isabellehad said of Vickers, using his own words of her, and her husband hadreplied, "Do? ... What could he do!"

"I've just been to see Alice, " Vickers remarked timidly. "She takes Steve'schange of business very calmly. "

"She doesn't know, " Lane answered curtly. "And I am afraid he doesn'teither. "

He let the topic drop, and they walked on in silence, turning off at thestile into an old by-path that led up to the new house through a smallgrove of beeches, which Isabelle had saved at her brother's plea from thedestructive hand of the landscape artist. Vickers was thinking about Lane. He understood his brother-in-law as little as the latter comprehended him. He had often wondered these past months: 'Doesn't he _see_ what ishappening to Isabelle? Doesn't he care! It isn't surely helpless yet, --theyaren't so wholly incompatible, and Isabelle is frank, is honest!' But ifLane saw the state of affairs in his house, he never showed that heperceived it. His manner with his wife was placid, --although, as Isabelleoften said, he was very little with her. But that state of separation inwhich the two lived seemed less due to incompatibility than to the accidentof the way they lived. Lane was a very busy man with much on his mind; hehad no time for emotional tribulations. 

Since his return from the West--these five days which he had allowedhimself as vacation--he had been irritable at times, easily disturbed, ashe had been with Steve Johnston, but never short with his wife. Vickerssupposed that some business affair was weighing on him, and as was hishabit he locked it up tight within.... 

And Lane would never have told what it was that gnawed at him, last of allto Vickers. It was pride that made him seem not to see, not to know thechange that had come into his house. And something more, which might befound only in this kind of American gentleman, --a deep well of loyalty tohis wife, a feeling of: 'What she wishes, no matter what it may be to me!''I shall trust her to the last, and if she fails me, I will still trust herto be true to herself. ' A chivalry this, unsuspected by Vickers! Somethingof that old admiration for his wife which made him feel that he shouldprovide her with the opportunities she craved, that somehow she had stoopedin marrying him, still survived in spite of his successful career. Andlove? To define the sort of sentiment Lane at forty-two had for his wife, modified by his activities, by his lack of children, by her evident lack ofpassion for him, would not be an easy matter. But that he loved her moredeeply than mere pride, than habit would account for, was sure. In thatafterglow between men and women which comes when the storms of life havebeen lived through, Lane might be found a sufficient lover.... 

As they entered the narrow path that led through the beechwood, Lanestepped aside to allow Vickers to precede him. The afternoon sun falling onthe glossy new leaves made a pleasant light. They had come to a point inthe path where the western wing of the house was visible through the treeswhen suddenly Vickers stopped, hesitated, as if he would turn back, andsaid aloud hastily: "I always like this side of the house best, --don't you?It is quieter, less open than the south facade, more _intime_--" He talkedon aimlessly, blocking the path, staring at the house, gesticulating. Whenhe moved, he glanced at Lane's face.... 

Just below in a hollow where a stone bench had been placed, Isabelle wassitting with Cairy, his arm about her, her eyes looking up at him, something gay and happy in the face like that little French song she wassinging these days, as if a voice had stilled the restless craving in her, had touched to life that dead pulse, which had refused to beat for herhusband.... This was what Vickers had seen, and it was on his lips to say, "When did Cairy come? Isabelle did not tell me. " But instead he hadfaltered out nonsense, while the two, hearing his voice, betook themselvesto the upper terrace. Had her husband seen them? Vickers wondered. Something in the man's perfect control, his manner of listening toVickers's phrases, made him feel that he had seen--all. But Lane in hisordinary monosyllabic manner pointed to a nest of ground sparrows besidethe path. "Guess we had better move this establishment to a safer place, "he remarked, as he carefully put the nest into the thicket. 

When they reached the hall, Isabelle, followed by Cairy, entered from theopposite door. "Hello, Tom; when did you get in?" Lane asked in hisordinary equable voice. "I sent your message, Isabelle. " And he went todress for dinner. 

 * * * * *

The dinner that night of the three men and the woman was tense and still atfirst. All the radiance had faded from Isabelle's face, leaving it white, and she moved as if she were numb. Vickers, watching her face, was sad atheart, miserable as he had been since he had seen her and Cairy together. Already it had gone so far! ... Cairy was talkative, as always, tellingstories of his trip to the South. At some light jeer over the Californiarailroad situation, Lane suddenly spoke:--

"That is only one side, Tom. There is another. "

Ordinarily he would have laughed at Cairy's flippant handling of the topicsof the day. But to-night he was ready to challenge. 

"The public doesn't want to hear the other side, it seems, " Cairy retortedquickly. 

Lane looked at him slowly as he might at a mosquito that he purposed tocrush. "I think that some of the public wants to hear all sides, " hereplied quietly. "Let us see what the facts are. "... 

To-night he did not intend to be silenced by trivialities. Cairy had givenhim an opening on his own ground, --the vast field of fact. And he talkedastonishingly well, with a grip not merely of the much-discussed railroadsituation, but of business in general, economic conditions in America andabroad, --the trend of development. He talked in a large and leisurely wayall through the courses, and when Cairy would interpose some objection, hisjudicious consideration eddied about it with a deferential sweep, thentossed it high on the shore of his buttressed conclusions. Vickers listenedin astonishment to the argument, while Isabelle, her hands clasped tightbefore her, did not eat, but shifted her eyes from her husband's face toCairy's and back again as the talk flowed. 

... "And granted, " Lane said by way of conclusion, having thoroughlyriddled Cairy's contentions, "that in some cases there has been trickeryand fraud, is that any reason why we should indict the corporate managementof all great properties? Even if all the law-breaking of which our roadsare accused could be proved to be true, nevertheless any philosophicinvestigator would conclude that the good they have done--the efficientservice for civilization--far outbalances the wrong--"

"Useful thieves and parasites!" Cairy interposed. 

"Yes, --if you like to put it in those words, " Lane resumed quietly. "Thelaw of payment for service in this world of ours is not a simple one. Forlarge services and great sacrifices, the rewards must be large. For largerisks and daring efforts, the pay must be alluring. Every excellence of ahigh degree costs, --every advance is made at the sacrifice of a lower orderof good. "

"Isn't that a pleasant defence for crime?" Isabelle asked. 

Lane looked at his wife for a long moment of complete silence. 

"Haven't you observed that people break laws, and seem to feel that theyare justified in doing so by the force of higher laws?"

Isabelle's eyes fell. He had seen, Vickers knew, --not only this afternoon, but all along! ... Presently they rose from the table, and as they passedout of the room Isabelle's scarf fell from her neck. Lane and Cairy stoopedto pick it up. Cairy had his hands on it first, but in some way it was thehusband who took possession of it and handed it to the wife. Her handtrembled as she took it from him, and she hurried to her room. 

"If you are interested in this matter of the Pacific roads, Tom, " Lanecontinued, handing Cairy the cigarette box, "I will have my secretary lookup the data and send it out here.... You will be with us some time, Isuppose?"

Cairy mumbled his thanks. 

After this scene Vickers felt nothing but admiration for hisbrother-in-law. The man knew the risks. He cared, --yes, he cared! Vickerswas very sure of that. At dinner it had been a sort of modern duel, as if, with perfect courtesy and openness, Lane had taken the opportunity to tryconclusions with the rival his wife had chosen to give him, --to tease himwith his rapier, to turn his mind to her gaze.... And yet, even he mustknow how useless victory was to him, victory of this nature. Isabella didnot love Cairy because of his intellectual grasp, though in the matters shecared for he seemed brilliant. 

'It's to be a fight between them, ' thought Vickers. 'He is giving the otherone every chance. Oh, it is magnificent, this way of winning one's wife. But the danger in it!' And Vickers knew now that Lane scorned to hold awoman, even his wife, in any other way. His wife should not be bound to himby oath, nor by custom, nor even by their child. Nor would he plead forhimself in this contest. Against the other man, he would play merelyhimself, --the decent years of their common life, their home, her own heart. And he was losing, --Vickers felt sure of that. 

CHAPTER LII

Did he know that he had virtually lost when at the end of his briefvacation he went back to the city, leaving his rival alone in the field?During those tense days Vickers's admiration for the man grew. He was goodtempered and considerate, even of Cairy. Lane had always been a pleasanthost, and now instead of avoiding Cairy he seemed to seek his society, madean effort to talk to him about his work, and advised him shrewdly in acertain transaction with a theatrical manager. 

"If she should go away with Cairy, " Vickers said to himself, "he will lookout for them always!"

Husband and wife, so Vickers judged, did not talk together during all thistime. Perhaps they did not dare to meet the issue openly. At any rate whenIsabelle proposed driving John to the station the last night, he saidkindly, "It's raining, my dear, --I think you had better not. " So he kissedher in the hall before the others, made some commonplace suggestion aboutthe place, and with his bag in hand left, nodding to them all as he gotinto the carriage. Isabelle, who had appeared dazed these days, as if, herheart and mind occupied in desperate inner struggle, her body livedmechanically, left the two men to themselves and went to her room. Andshortly afterwards Cairy, who had become subdued, thoughtful, pleaded workand went upstairs. 

 * * * * *

When Vickers rose early the next morning, the country was swathed in a thinwhite mist. The elevation on which the house stood just pierced the fog, and, here and there below, the head of a tall pine emerged. Vickers hadslept badly with a suffocating sense of impending danger. When he steppedout of the drawing-room on the terrace, the coolness of the damp fog andthe stillness of the June morning not yet broken by bird notes soothed histroubled mind. All this silent beauty, serenely ordered nature--andtumultuous man! Out of the earthy elements of which man was compounded, hehad sucked passions which drove him hither and yon.... As he walked towardsthe west garden, the window above the terrace opened, and Isabelle, dressedin her morning clothes, looked down on her brother. 

"I heard your step, Vick, " she said in a whisper. Her face in the graylight was colorless, and her eyes were dull, veiled. "Wait for me, Bud!"

In a few moments she appeared, covered with a gray cloak, a softsaffron-colored veil drawn about her head. Slipping one hand under hisarm, --her little fingers tightening on his flesh, --she led the way throughthe garden to the beech copse, which was filled with mist, then down to thestone bench, where she and Cairy had sat that other afternoon. 

"How still it is!" she murmured, shivering slightly. She looked back to thecopse, vague in the mist, and said: "Do you remember the tent we had herein the summers? We slept in it one night.... It was then I used to say thatI was going to marry you, brother, and live with you for always becausenobody else could be half so nice.... I wish I had! Oh, how I wish I had!We should have been happy, you and I. And it would have been better forboth of us. "

She smiled at him wanly. He understood the reference she made to hismisadventure, but said nothing. Suddenly she leaned her head on hisshoulder. 

"Vick, dear, do you think that any one could care enough to forgiveeverything? Do you love me enough, so you would love me, no matter what Idid? ... That's real love, the only kind, that loves because it must andforgives because it loves! Could you, Vick? Could you?"

Vickers smoothed back her rumpled hair and drew the veil over it. 

"You know that nothing would make any difference to me. "

"Ah, you don't know! But perhaps you could--" Then raising her head shespoke with a harder voice. "But that's weak. One must expect to pay forwhat one does, --pay everything. Oh, my God!"

The fog had retreated slowly from their level. They stood on the edgelooking into its depth. Suddenly Vickers exclaimed with energy:--

"You must end this, Isabelle! It will kill you. "

"I wish it might!"

"End it!" and he added slowly, "Send him away--or let me take you away!"

"I--I--can't, --Vick!" she cried. "It has got beyond me.... It is not justfor myself--just me. It's for _him_, too. He needs me. I could do so muchfor him! And here I can do nothing. "

"And John?"

"Oh, John! He doesn't care, really--"

"Don't say that!"

"If he did--"

"Isabelle, he saw you and Tom, here, the afternoon Tom came!"

She flushed and drew herself away from her brother's arms. 

"I know it--it was the first time that--that anything happened! ... If hecared, why didn't he say something then, do something, strike me--"

"That is not right, Belle; you know he is not that kind of animal. "

"If a man cares for a woman, he hasn't such godlike control! ... No, Johnwants to preserve appearances, to have things around him smooth, --he's toocold to care!"

"That's ungenerous. "

"Haven't I lived with him years enough to know what is in his heart? Hehates scandal. That's his nature, --he doesn't want unpleasant words, afuss. There won't be any, either.... But I'm not the calculating kind, Vick. If I do it, I do it for the whole world to know and to see. I'm notConny, --no sneaking compromises; I'll do it as you did it, --for the wholeworld to see and know. "

"But you'll not do it!"

"You think I haven't the courage? You don't know me, Vick. I am not a girlany longer. I am thirty-two, and I know life _now_, my life at any rate.... It was all wrong between John and me from the beginning, --yes, from thebeginning!"

"What makes you say that! You don't really believe it in your heart. Youloved John when you married him. You were happy with him afterwards. "

"I don't believe that any girl, no matter what experience she has had, canreally love a man before she is married to him. I was sentimental, romantic, and I thought my liking for a man was love. I wanted tolove, --all girls do. But I didn't know enough to love. It is all blind, blind! I might have had that feeling about other men, the feeling I had forJohn before.... Then comes marriage, and it's luck, all luck, whether lovecomes, whether it is right--the thing for you--the only one. Sometimes itis, --often enough for those who don't ask much, perhaps. But it was _wrong_for John and me. I knew it from the first days, --those when we tried tothink we were happiest. I have never confessed this to a humanbeing, --never to John. But it was so, Vick! I didn't know then what was thematter--why it was wrong. But a woman suspects then.... Those first days Iwas wretched, --I wanted to cry out to him: 'Can't you see it is wrong? Youand I must part; our way is not the same!' But he seemed content. And therewas father and mother and everything to hold us to the mistake. And ofcourse I felt that it might come in time, that somehow it was my fault. Ieven thought that love as I wanted it was impossible, could never exist fora woman.... So the child came, and I went through the motions. And the gapgrew between us each year as I came to be a woman. I saw the gap, but Ithought it was always so, almost always, between husbands and wives, and Iwent on going through the motions.... That was why I was ill, --yes, thereal reason, because we were not fitted to be married. Because I tried todo something against nature, --tried to live married to a man who wasn'treally my husband!"

Her voice sank exhausted. Never before even to herself had she said itall, --summed up that within her which must justify her revolt. Vickers feltthe hot truth to her of her words; but granted the truth, was it enough?

Before he could speak she went on wearily, as if compelled:--

"But it might have gone on so until the end, until I died. Perhaps I couldhave got used to it, living like that, and fussed around like other womenover amusements and charities and houses, --all the sawdust stuffing oflife--and become a useless old woman, and not cared, not known. "

She drew a deep breath. 

"But you see--I know _now_--what the other is! I have known since"--hervoice sank to a whisper--"that afternoon when I kissed him for the firsttime. " She shuddered. "I am not a stick, Vick! I--am a woman! ... No, don'tsay it!" She clasped his arm tightly. "You don't like Tom. You can'tunderstand. He may not be what I feel he is--he may be less of a man formen than John. But I think it makes little difference to a woman so long asshe loves--what the man is to others. To her he is _all_ men!"

With this cry her voice softened, and now she spoke calmly. "And you see Ican give him something! I can give HIM love and joy. And more--I could makeit possible for him to do what he wants to do with his life. I would gowith him to some beautiful spot, where he could be all that he has it inhim to be, and I could watch and love. Oh, we should be enough, he and I!"

"Dear, that you can never tell! ... It was not enough for us--for her. Youcan't tell when you are like this, ready to give all, whether it's what theother most needs or really wants. "

In spite of Isabelle's doubting smile, Vickers hurried on, --willing now toshow his scar. 

"I have never told you how it was over there all these years. I could notspeak of it.... I thought _we_ should be enough, as you say. We had ourlove and our music.... But we weren't enough, almost from the start. Shewas unhappy. She really wanted those things we had given up, which shemight have had if it had been otherwise--I mean if she had been my wife. Iwas too much of a fool to see that at once. I didn't want divorce andmarriage--there were difficulties in the way, too. We had thrown over theworld, defied it. I didn't care to sneak back into the fold.... Our loveturned bad. All the sentiment and lofty feeling somehow went out of it. Webecame two animals, tied together first by our passion, and afterwardsby--the situation. I can't tell you all. It was killing.... It did kill thebest in me. "

"It was _her_ fault. The woman makes the kind of love always. "

"No, she might have been different, another way! But I tell you the facts. She became dissatisfied, restless. She was unfaithful to me. I knew it, andI shielded her--because in part I had made her what she was. But it wasawful. And at the end she went away with that other man. He will leave her. Then she'll take another.... Love turns sour, I tell you--love taken thatway. Life becomes just curdled milk. And it eats you like poison. Look atme, --the marrow of a man is all gone!"

"Dear Vick, it was all _her_ fault. Any decent woman would have made youhappy, --you would have worked, written great music, --lived a large life. "

His story did not touch her except with pity for him. To her thinking eachcase was distinct, and her lips curved unconsciously into a smile, as ifshe were picturing how different it would be with _them_.... 

The fog had broken, and was rising from the meadows below, revealing thetrees and the sun. The birds had begun to sing in the beeches. It was freshand cool and moist before the warmth of the coming day. Isabelle drew deepbreaths and loosened her scarf. 

Vickers sat silent, miserable. As he had said to Alice, the wreck of hislife, where he had got knowledge so dearly, availed nothing when most hewould have it count for another. 

"No, Vick! Whatever happens it will be our own fate, nobody's else--and Iwant it!"

There was cool deliberation in her tone as if the resolve had been madealready. 

"Not John's fate, too?"

"He's not the kind to let a thing like this upset him long. While therailroad runs and the housekeeper stays--"

"And Molly's fate?"

"Of course I have thought about Marian. There are ways. It is often done. She would be with me until she went to school, which won't be long, now. "

"But just think what it would mean to her if her mother left her father. "

"Oh, not so much, perhaps! I have been a good mother.... And why should Ikill the twenty, thirty, maybe forty years left of my life for a child'ssentiment for her mother? Very likely by the time she grows up, people willthink differently about marriage. "

She talked rapidly, as if eager to round all the corners. 

"She may even decide to do the same thing some day. "

"And you would want her to?"

"Yes! Rather than have the kind of marriage I have had. "

"Isabelle!"

"You are an old sentimental dreamer, Vick. You don't understand modernlife. And you don't know women--they're lots more like men, too, than youthink. They write such fool things about women. There are so many sillyideas about them that they don't dare to be themselves half the time, except a few like Margaret. She is honest with herself. Of course she lovesRob Falkner. He's in Panama now, but when he gets back I have no doubtMargaret will go and live with him. And she's got three children!"

"Isabelle, you aren't Margaret Pole or Cornelia Woodyard or any other womanbut yourself. There are some things _you_ can't do. I know you. There's thesame twist in us both. You simply can't do this! You think you can, and youtalk like this to me to make yourself think that you can.... But when itcomes to the point, when you pack your bag, you know you will just unpackit again--and darn the stockings!"

"No, no!" Isabelle laughed in spite of herself; "I can't--I won't.... Whydo I sniffle so like this? It's your fault, Vick; you always stir thepathetic note in me, you old fraud!"

She was crying now in long sobs, the tears falling to his hand. 

"I know you because we are built the same foolish, idiotic way. There aremany women who can play that game, who can live one way for ten or a dozenyears, and then leave all that they have been--without ever looking back. But you are not one of them. I am afraid you and I are sentimentalists. It's a bad thing to be, Belle, but we can't help ourselves. We want thefreedom of our feelings, but we want to keep a halo about them. You talkedof cutting down these beeches. But you would never let one be touched, notone. "

"I'll have 'em all cut down to-morrow, " Isabelle murmured through hertears. 

"Then you'll cry over them! No, Belle, it's no use going dead against yournature--the way you were made to run. You may like to soar, but you weremeant to walk. "

"You think there is nothing to me, --that I haven't a soul!"

"I know the soul. "

Isabella flung her arms about her brother and clung there, breathing hard. The long night had worn her out with its incessant alternation of doubt andresolve, endlessly weaving through her brain. 

"Better to suffer on in this cloudy world than to make others suffer, " hemurmured. 

"Don't talk! I am so tired--so tired. ".... 

From the hillside below came a whistled note, then the bar of a song, likea bird call. Some workman on the place going to his work, Vickers thought. It was repeated, and suddenly Isabelle took her arms from his neck, --hereyes clear and a look of determination on her lips. 

"No, Vick; you don't convince me.... You did the other thing when it cameto you. Perhaps we _are_ alike. Well, then, I shall do it! I shall dare tolive!".... 

And with that last defiance, -the curt expression of the floating beliefswhich she had acquired, --she turned towards the house. 

"Come, it is breakfast time. "

She waited for him to rise and join her. For several silent moments theylingered to look at Dog Mountain across the river, as if they were lookingat it for the last time, at something they had both so much loved. 

"You are dear, brother, " she murmured, taking his hand. "But don't lectureme. You see I am a woman now!"

And looking into her grave, tear-stained face, Vickers saw that he hadlost. She had made her resolution; she would "dare to live, " and that lifewould be with Cairy! His heart was sad. Though he had tried to free himselfof his old dislike of Cairy and see him through Isabelle's eyes, it wasuseless. He read Tom Cairy's excitable, inflammable, lightly poised nature, with the artist glamour in him that attracted women. He would be allflame--for a time, --then dead until his flame was lighted before anothershrine. And Isabelle, proud, exacting, who had always been served, --no, itwas hopeless! Inevitable tragedy, to be waited for like the expectedmotions of nature!

And beneath this misery for Isabelle was the bitterest of humanfeelings, --personal defeat, personal inadequacy. 'If I had been another!'"Don't lecture me!" she had said almost coldly. The spiritual power ofguidance had gone from him, because of what he had done. Inwardly he feltthat it had gone. That was part of the "marrow of the man" that had beenburned out. The soul of him was impotent; he was a shell, something dead, that could not kindle another to life. 

'I could have saved her, ' he thought. 'Once I could have saved her. She hasfound me lacking _now_, when she needs me most!'

The whistle sounded nearer. 

"Will you do one thing for me, Isabelle?"

"All--but one thing!"

"Let me know first. "

"You will know. "

Cairy was coming down the terrace, cigarette in hand. His auburn hair shonein the sunlight. After his sleep, his bath, his cup of early coffee, he wasbright with physical content, and he felt the beauty of the misty morningin every sense. Seeing the brother and sister coming from the beechestogether, he scrutinized them quickly; like the perfect egotist, he wasswiftly measuring what this particular conjunction of personalities mightmean to him. Then he limped towards them, his face in smiles, and bowing inmock veneration, he lay at Isabelle's feet a rose still dewy with mist. 

Vickers turned on his heel, his face twitching. But Isabelle with partedlips and gleaming eyes looked at the man, her whole soul glad, as a womanlooks who is blind to all but one thought, --'I love him. '

"The breath of the morn, " Cairy said, lifting the rose. "The morn ofmorns, --this is to be a great day, my lady! I read it in your eyes. "

CHAPTER LIII

It was still sultry at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the two menwalked slowly in the direction of the river. Cairy, who had been summonedby telegram to the city, would have preferred to be driven to the junctionby Isabelle, but when Vickers had suggested that he knew a short cut by ashady path along the river, he had felt obliged to accept the impliedinvitation. He was debating why Price had suddenly evinced this desire tobe with him, for he felt sure that Vickers disliked him. But Isabelle hadshown plainly that she would like him to accept her brother's offer, --shewas too tired to go out again, she said, and the only horse that could beused was a burden to drive. So he set forth on the two-mile walk thisoppressive afternoon, not in the best mood, determined to let Vickers dothe talking. 

They plodded across the meadow in silence, Cairy thinking of the interviewin the city, his spirits rising as they always soared at the slightest hintof an "opening. " "I'll make her take the play, " he said to himself; "sheisn't much good as an actress, but I must get the thing on. I'll need themoney. " He hoped to finish his business with this minor star, who hadexpressed a desire to see him, and return to Grafton by the morningexpress. Isabelle would be disappointed if he should not be back forluncheon. 

Vickers's head was bent to the path. He had seized this chance of beingalone with Cairy, and now that they were beyond the danger of interruptionhis blood beat uncomfortably in his head and he could not speak--for fearof uttering the wrong word.... When they reached the river, the two menpaused involuntarily in the shade and looked back up the slope to the Farm, lying in the warm haze on the brow of the hill. As they stood there, theshutter of an upper chamber was drawn in, and Cairy smiled to himself. 

"The house looks well from here, " he remarked. "It's a pleasant spot. "

"It is a dear old place!" Vickers answered, forgetting for the moment thechanges that Isabelle had wrought at the Farm. "It's grown into ourlives, --Isabelle's and mine. We used to come here as boy and girl invacations.... It was a day something like this when my sister was married. I remember seeing her as she came out of the house and crossed the meadowon my father's arm. We watched her from the green in front of thechapel.... She was very beautiful--and happy!"

"I can well imagine it, " Cairy replied dryly, surprised at Vickers's suddenloquacity on family matters. "But I suppose we ought to be moving on, hadn't we, to get that express? You see I am a poor walker at the best. "

Vickers struck off by the river path, leading the way. Suddenly he stopped, and with flushed face said:--

"Tom, I wish you wouldn't come back to-morrow!"

"And why the devil--"

"I know it isn't _my_ house, it isn't _my_ wife, it isn't _my_ affair. But, Tom, my sister and I have been closer than most, --even husband and wife. Ilove her, --well, that's neither here nor there!"

"What are you driving at, may I ask?" Cairy demanded coldly. 

"What I am going to say isn't usual--it isn't conventional. But I don'tknow any conventional manner of doing what I want to do. I think we have todrop all that sometimes, and speak out like plain human beings. That's theway I am going to speak to you, --as man to man.... I don't want to beatabout the bush, Tom. I think it would be better if you did not come backto-morrow, --never came back to the Farm!"

He had not said it as he meant to phrase it. He was aware that he had lostground by blurting it out like this. Cairy waited until he had lighted acigarette before he replied, with a laugh:--

"It is a little--brusque, your idea. May I ask why I am not to come back?"

"You know well enough! ... I had hoped we could keep--other names out ofthis. "

"We can't. "

"My sister is very unhappy--"

"You think I make your sister unhappy?"

"Yes. "

"I prefer to let her be the judge of that, " Cairy retorted, walking aheadstiffly and exaggerating his limp. 

"You know she cannot be a judge of what is best--just now. "

"I think she can judge of herself better than any--outsider!"

Vickers flushed, controlled himself, and said almost humbly:--

"I know you care for her, Tom. We both do. So I thought we might discuss itamicably. "

"This doesn't seem to me a discussable matter. "

"But anything that concerns one I love as I do Isabelle _must_ bediscussable in some way. "

"Your sister told me about her talk with you this morning.... You did yourbest then, it seems. If you couldn't succeed in changing _her_ mind, --whatdo you expect from me?"

"That you will be generous! ... There are some things that Isabelle can'tsee straight just now. She doesn't know herself, altogether. "

"I should think that her husband--"

"Can't you feel his position? His lips are closed by his pride, by hislove!"

"I should say, Vickers, " Cairy remarked with a sneer, "that you had betterfollow Lane's sensible course. This is a matter for the two most concernedand for them alone to discuss.... With your experience you must understandthat ours is the situation which a mature man and a mature woman mustsettle for themselves. Nothing that an outsider says can count. "

And turning around to face Vickers, he added slowly, "Isabelle and I willdo what seems best to us, just as under similar circumstances you did whatyou thought was best for you without consulting anybody, as I remember. "

Vickers quivered as his eye met Cairy's glance, but he accepted the sneerquietly. 

"The circumstances were not the same. And I may have learned that it is aserious matter to do what you wish to do, --to take another man's wife, nomatter what the circumstances are. "

"Oh, that's a mere phrase. There's usually not much taking! When a woman isunhappy in her marriage, when she can be happy with another man, when noone can be really hurt--"

"Somebody always is hurt. "

"The only thing I am greatly interested in is Isabelle's happiness, herlife. She has been stifled all these years of marriage, intellectually, emotionally stifled. She has begun to live lately--we have both begun tolive. Do you think we shall give that up? Do you think any of your littlepreachments can alter the life currents of two strong people who love andfind their fulfilment in each other? You know men and women very little ifyou think so! We are living to-day at the threshold of a new socialepoch, --an honester one than the world has seen yet, thank God! Men andwomen are daring to throw off the bonds of convention, to think forthemselves, and determine what is best for them, for their highest good, undisturbed by the bogies so long held up. I will take my life, I willlive, I will not be suffocated by a false respect for my neighbor'sopinion. "

Cairy paused in the full career of his phrases. He was gesticulating withhis hands, almost forgetful of Vickers, launched as it were on a dramaticmonologue. He was accustomed thus to dramatize an emotional state, as thoseof his temperament are wont to do, living in a world of their own feelingsimaginatively projected. While Vickers listened to Cairy's torrent ofwords, he had but one thought: 'It's no use. He can't be reached thatway--any way!'

A stone wall stopped their progress. As Cairy slowly dragged himself overthe wall, Vickers saw the outline of the pistol in the revolver pocket, andremembered the afternoon when Cairy had shown them the weapon and displayedhis excellent marksmanship. And now, as then, the feeling of contempt thatthe peaceable Anglo-Saxon has for the man who always goes armed in apeaceable land came over him. 

Cairy resumed his monologue on the other side of the wall. 

"It is the silliest piece of barbaric tradition for a civilized man tothink that because a woman has once seen fit to give herself to him, she ishis possession for all time. Because she has gone through some form, someceremony, repeated a horrible oath that she doesn't understand, to say thatshe belongs to that man, is _his_, like his horse or his house, --phew!That's mere animalism. Human souls belong to themselves! Most of all thesoul of a delicately sensitive woman like Isabelle! She gives, and she cantake away. It's her duty to take herself back when she realizes that it nolonger means anything to her, that her life is degraded by--"

"Rot!" Vickers exclaimed impatiently. He had scarcely heard what Cairy hadbeen saying. His sickening sense of failure, of impotency, when he wishedmost for strength, had been succeeded by rage against the man, not becauseof his fluent argument, but because of himself; not against his theory oflicense, but against him. He saw Isabelle's life broken on the point ofthis glib egotism. "We needn't discuss your theories. The one fact is thatmy sister's life shall not be ruined by you!"

Cairy, dropping back at once to his tone of worldly convention, repliedcalmly:--

"That I think we shall have to let the lady decide for herself, --whether Ishall ruin her life or not. And I beg to point out that this topic is ofyour own choosing. I regard it as an impertinence. Let us drop it. And ifyou will point out the direction, I think I will hurry on by myself and getmy train. "

"My God, no! We won't drop it--not yet. Not until you have heard a littlemore what I have in mind.... I think I know you, Cairy, better than mysister knows you. Would you make love to a _poor_ woman, who had a lot ofchildren, and take _her_? Would you take her and her children, like a man, and work for them? ... In this case you will be given what you want--"

"I did not look for vulgarity from you! But with the _bourgeoisie_, Isuppose, it all comes down to dollars and cents. I have not considered Mrs. Lane's circumstances. "

"It's not mere dollars and cents! Though that is a test, --what a man willdo for a woman, not what a woman will do for a man she loves and--pities. "

As Cairy shot an ugly glance at him, Vickers saw that he was fast angeringthe man past all hope of influence. But he was careless now, having utterlyfailed to avert evil from the one he loved most in the world, and he pouredout recklessly his bitter feeling:--

"The only success you have to offer a woman is success with other women!That little nurse in the hospital, you remember? The one who took care ofyou--"

"If you merely wish to insult me--" the Southerner stammered. 

They were in the midst of a thicket of alders near the river, and thesinking sun, falling through the young green leaves, mottled the path withlight and shade. The river, flushed with spring water, gurgled pleasantlyover pebbly shallows. It was very still and drowsy; the birds had not beguntheir evening song. 

The two men faced each other, their hands clenched in their coat pockets, and each read the hate in the other's face. 

"Insult you!" Vickers muttered. "Cairy, you are scum to me--scum!"

Through the darkness of his rage a purpose was struggling--a blindpurpose--that urged him on. 

... "I don't know how many other women after the nurse have served tofatten your ego. But you will never feed on my sister's blood while Ilive!"

He stepped closer unconsciously, and as he advanced Cairy retreated, takinghis clenched hand from his pocket. 

"Why don't you strike?" Vickers cried. 

Suddenly he knew that purpose; it had emerged with still clearness in hishot brain. His heart whispered, 'She will never do it over my body!' Andthe thought calmed him at once. He saw Cairy's trembling arm and angryface. 'He'll shoot, ' he said to himself coldly. 'It's in his blood, andhe's a coward. He'll shoot!' Standing very still, his hands in his pockets, he looked quietly at the enraged man. He was master now!

"Why don't you strike?" he repeated. 

And as the Southerner still hesitated, he added slowly:--

"Do you want to hear more?"

The memory of old gossip came back to him. 'He is not the real VirginiaCairy, ' some one had said once; 'he has the taint, --that mountain branch ofthe family, --the mother, you know, they say!' Very slowly Vickers spoke:--

"No decent man would want his sister living with a fellow whose mother--"

As the words fell he could see it coming, --the sudden snatch backwards ofthe arm, the little pistol not even raised elbow high. And in the drowsyJune day, with the flash of the shot, the thought leapt upwards in hisclear mind, 'At last I am not impotent--I have saved her!'.... 

And when he sank back into the meadow grass without a groan, seeing Cairy'sface mistily through the smoke, and behind him the blur of the sky, hethought happily, 'She will never go to him, now--never!'--and then his eyesclosed. 

 * * * * *

It was after sunset when some men fishing along the river heard a groan andhunting through the alders and swamp grass found Vickers, lying face downin the thicket. One of the men knew who he was, and as they lifted him fromthe pool of blood where he lay and felt the stiff fold of his coat, onesaid:--

"He must have been here some time. He's lost an awful lot of blood! Thewound is low down. "

They looked about for the weapon in the dusk, and not finding it, took theunconscious man into their boat and started up stream. 

"Suicide?" one queried. 

"Looks that way, --I'll go back after the pistol, later. "

 * * * * *

Isabelle had had tea with Marian and the governess out in the garden, andafterwards strolled about through the beds, plucking a flower here andthere. To the agitation of the morning the calm of settled resolve hadsucceeded. She looked at the house and the gardens thoughtfully, as onelooks who is about to depart on a long journey. In her heart was thestillness after the storm, not joy, --that would come later when the stepwas taken; when all was irrevocably settled. She thought quite methodicallyof how it would all be, --what must be done to cut the cords of the oldlife, to establish the new. John would see the necessity, --he would notmake difficulties. He might even be glad to have it all over! Of course hermother would wail, but she would learn to accept. She would leave Molly atfirst, and John naturally must have his share in her always. That could beworked out later. As for the Farm, they might come back to it afterwards. John had better stay on here for the present, --it was good for Molly. Theywould probably live in the South, if they decided to live in America. Shewould prefer London, however.... She was surprised at the sure way in whichshe could think it all out. That must be because it was right and there wasno wavering in her purpose.... Poor Vick! he would care most. But he wouldcome to realize how much better it was thus, how much more right reallythan to go dragging through a loveless, empty life. And when he saw herhappy with Tom--but she wished he liked Tom better. 

The failure of Vickers to return in time for tea had not troubled her. Hehad a desultory, irregular habit of life. He might have stopped at Alice'sor even decided to go on to the city with Tom, or merely wandered offacross the country by himself.... 

In the last twilight three men came up the meadow path, carrying somethingamong them, walking slowly. Isabelle caught sight of them as they reachedthe lower terrace and with her eyes fastened on them, trying to make outthe burden they were carrying so carefully, stood waiting before the house. 

"What is it?" she asked at last as the men drew nearer, seeing in the gloomonly the figures staggering slightly as they mounted the steps. 

"Your brother's been hurt, Mrs. Lane, " a voice said. 

"Hurt!" That nameless fear of supernatural interference, the quiver of thehuman nerve at the possible message from the infinite, stopped the beatingof her heart. 

"Yes'm--shot!" the voice said. "Where shall we take him?"

They carried Vickers upstairs and placed him in Isabelle's bed, as shedirected. Bending over him, she tried to unbutton the stiff coat with hertrembling fingers, and suddenly she felt something warm--his blood. It wasred on her hand. She shuddered before an unknown horror, and withmysterious speed the knowledge came to her heart that Fate had overtakenher--here!

CHAPTER LIV

The doctors had come, probed for the bullet, and gone. They had not foundthe bullet. The wound was crooked, they said, entering the fleshy part ofthe abdomen, ranging upwards in the direction of the heart, then to theback. The wounded man was still unconscious. There was a chance, so the NewYork surgeon told Isabelle, --only they had not been able to locate thebullet, and the heart was beating feebly. There had been a great loss ofblood. If he had been found earlier, perhaps--they did not know.... 

Outside on the drive the doctors exchanged glances, low words, and signs. Accident? But how, the ball ranging upwards like that? He would have to beon his knees. Well, then, suicide! Had the pistol been found? ... Thereneed be no scandal--the family was much loved in the village. Accident, ofcourse. The fellow was always odd, the local practitioner explained to thecity doctor, as he carried his distinguished colleague home in his car forbreakfast. There was that scandal with a woman in Venice. They said it wasall over, but you could never tell about those things.... 

Upstairs the nurse made ready the room for illness, while Isabelle sat bythe bed, watching her brother. Vickers was still unconscious, scarcelybreathing. The nurse, having tried a number of ways to get her out of theroom, now ignored her, and Isabelle sat in a kind of stupor, waiting forthat Fate which had overtaken her to be worked out. When the gray dawn ofthe morning stole into the dark room, the nurse unbolted the shutters andthrew open the window. In the uncertain light Dog Mountain loomed large anddistant. Isabelle turned her head from Vickers's face and watched thewooded peak as it came nearer and nearer in the deepening light.... It wasthis hill that she and Vickers had climbed in the winter morning so longago! How wonderful it had been then, life, for them both, with gloriouspossibilities of living! She had put forth her hands to grasp them, thesepossibilities, one after another, to grasp them for herself. Now they hadcome to an end--for both. There was no more to grasp.... 

When she turned back to the silent form by her side, she saw that Vickershad opened his eyes. His face was very white and the eyes were buried deepbeneath the eyebrows as of a man long sick, and he lay motionless. But theeyes had meaning in them; they were the eyes of the living. So brother andsister looked into each other, thus, and without words, without a murmur, it was all known between them. She understood! He had thrown his life intothe abyss before her that she might be kept to that vision they had had asboy and girl. It was not to be for him. But for her!

"Vick!" she whispered, falling on her knees by his side. For reply therewas that steady searching look, which spoke to unknown depths within her. "Vick!" she moaned. The white lips of the dying man trembled, and a faintflutter of breath crossed them--but no words. His fingers touched her hair. When she looked at him again through her tears, the eyes were closed, andthe face bore an austere look of preoccupation, as of one withdrawn fromthe business of life.... Afterwards the nurse touched the kneeling woman, the doctor came, she was led away. She knew that Vickers was dead. 

 * * * * *

Late that afternoon there came a knock at the door of the room whereIsabelle was, and her husband, hearing no sound, entered. She looked upwonderingly from the lounge where she lay. She did not know that John wasin the house, that he had been sent for. She was unaware what time hadelapsed since the evening before. 

"Isabelle, " he said and stopped. She looked at him questioningly. Theirritation that of late his very presence had caused her she was notconscious of now. All the irritations of life had been suddenly wiped outin the great fact. As she looked at her husband's grave face, she saw itwith a new sense, --she saw what was behind it, as if she had had the powergiven her to read beneath matter. She saw his concern, his real sorrow, hisconsideration, the distress for her in the heart of this man, whom she hadthrust out of her life.... 

"Isabelle, " he said very gently, hesitantly. "Tom has come--isdownstairs--wants to see you. He asked me if you would see him for amoment. "

This also did not surprise her. She was silent for a moment, and herhusband said:--

"Do you want to see him?"

"Yes, " she replied finally. "I will see him.... I will go down at once. "

She rose and stepped towards the door. 

"Isabelle!" Her husband's voice broke. Still standing with one hand on theknob of the door, he took from his pocket with the other a small pistol, and held it towards her on the palm of his hand. "Isabelle, " he said, "thiswas in the river--near where they found him!"

She looked at it calmly. It was that little gold and ivory chased toy whichshe remembered Tom had used one afternoon to shoot the magnolia blossomswith. She remembered it well. It was broken open, and a cartridge halfprotruded from the breach. 

"I thought you should know, " Lane added. 

"Yes, " Isabelle whispered. "I know. I knew! ... But I will go down and seehim. "

Her husband replaced the pistol in his pocket and opened the door for her. 

 * * * * *

Cairy was waiting before the fireplace in the library, nervously pacing toand fro across the rug. Would she see him? How much did she know? How muchdid they all know? How much would she forgive? ... These questions hadracked him every hour since in a spasm of nervous terror he had flung thepistol over the bushes and heard it splash in the river, and with oneterrified look at the wounded man, whom he had dragged into the thicket, had got himself in some unremembered fashion to the junction in time forthe express. These and other considerations--what story should hetell?--had racked him all through the evening, which he had been obliged tospend with the actress, answering her silly objections to this and that inhis play. Then during the night it became clear to him that he must returnto the Farm in the morning as he had planned, as if nothing had happened. His story would be that Vickers had turned back before they reached thejunction, and had borrowed his pistol to shoot at woodchucks.... WouldIsabelle believe this? She _must_ believe it! ... It took courage to walkup to the familiar house, but he must see her. It was the only way. And hehad been steadying himself for his part ever since he had left the city. 

When Isabelle entered the room, she closed the door behind her and stoodwith her back against it for support. She wore the same white dress thatshe had had on when Cairy and Vickers had left her, not having changed itfor tea. It had across the breast a small red stain, --the stain of herbrother's blood. Cairy reached out his hands and started towards her, crying:--

"Isabelle! Isabelle! how awful! Isabelle, --I--" She raised her arm as if toforbid him to advance, and he stood still, his words dying on his lips. Looking at him out of her weary eyes, Isabelle seemed to see through theman, with that same curious insight that had come when she had read thetruth in her brother's eyes; the same insight that had enabled her to seethe kindness and the pity beneath her husband's impassive gravity. So nowshe knew what he was going to say, the lie he would try to tell her. It wasas if she knew every secret corner of the man's soul, had known it alwaysreally, and had merely veiled her eyes to him wilfully. Now the veil hadbeen torn aside. Had Vickers given her this power to see into the heart ofthings, for always, so that the truths behind the veil she made shouldnever be hid?

'Why does he try to lie to me?' she seemed to ask herself. 'It is so weakto lie in this world where all becomes known. ' She merely gazed at him inwonder, seeing the deformed soul of the deformed body, eaten by egotism andpassions. And this last--cowardice! And he was the man she had loved! Thatshe had been ready to die for, to throw away all for, even the happiness ofothers! ... It was all strangely dead. A body stood there before her in itsnakedness. 

"What do you want?" she demanded almost indifferently. 

"I had to see you!" He had forgotten his story, his emotion, --everythingbeneath that piercing stare, which stripped him to the bone. 

"Haven't you--a word--" he muttered. 

Her eyes cried: 'I know. I know! I know ALL--even as those who are deadknow. '

"Nothing!" she said. 

"Isabelle!" he cried, and moved nearer. But the warning hand stopped himagain, and the empty voice said, "Nothing!"

Then he saw that it was all ended between them, that this brother's blood, which stained her breast, lay forever between them, could not be crossed byany human will. And more, that the verity of life itself lay like ablinding light between them, revealing him and her and their love. It wasdead, that love which they had thought was sacred and eternal, in the clearlight of truth. 

Without a word he walked to the open window and stepped into the garden, and his footstep on the gravel died away. Then Isabelle went back to thedead body in her room above. 

On the terrace Lane was sitting beside his little girl, the father talkingin low tones to the child, explaining what is death. 

PART SIX

CHAPTER LV

It was a long, cold drive from the station at White River up into thehills. In the gloom of the December afternoon the aspect of the austere, pitiless northern winter was intensified. A thin crust of snow throughwhich the young pines and firs forced their green tips covered the deadblackberry vines along the roadside. The ice of the brooks was broken inthe centre like cracked sheets of glass, revealing the black water gurglingbetween the frozen banks. The road lay steadily uphill, and the tworough-coated farm horses pulled heavily at the stiff harness, slippingconstantly in the track that was worn smooth and polished by the shoes ofthe wood-sleds. As the valley fell behind, the country opened out in broadsheets of snow-covered fields where frozen wisps of dead weeds flutteredabove the crust. Then came the woods, dark with "black growth, " and moredistant hillsides, gray and black, where the leafless deciduous growthmingled with the evergreens. At infrequent intervals along the roadappeared little farm-houses, --two rooms and an attic, with ricketyouthouses and barns, all banked with earth to protect them from the winter. These were forlorn enough when they showed marks of life; but again andagain they were deserted, with their special air of decay, the wind suckingthrough the paneless windows, the snow lying in unbroken drifts up to therotting sills. Sometimes a lane led from the highroad to where one orperhaps two houses were hidden under the shelter of a hill, removed stillfarther from the artery of life. Already the lamps had begun to glimmerfrom these remote habitations, dotting the hillsides like widely scatteredcandles. 

Lonely and desolate! These human beings lived in an isolation of snow andfrozen earth. So thought Isabelle Lane, chilled beneath the old fur robe, cold to the heart.... Ahead the hills lifted with broader lines, higher, more lonely, and the gray clouds almost touched their tops. In a cleft ofthe range towards which the road was winding, there shone a saffron light, the last effort of the December sun to break through the heavy sky. And fora few moments there gleamed far away to the left a spot of bright light, marvellously clear and illuming, where the white breast of a clearing onthe mountain had received these last few rays of sun. A warm golden pathwayled through the forest to it from the sun. That distant spot of sunny snowwas radiant, still, uplifting. Suddenly gloom again! The saffron glow fadedfrom the Pass between the hills, and the north wind drew down into thevalley, drifting the manes and the tails of the plodding horses. Soft wispsof snow circled and fell, --the heralding flakes of winter storm.... 

It seemed to Isabelle that she had been journeying on like this foruncounted time, and would plod on like this always, --chilled, numbed to theheart, moving through a frozen, lonely world far from the voices of men, remote from the multitudinous feet bent on the joyous errands of life.... She had sunk into a lethargy of body and mind, in which the cheerlessphysical atmosphere reflected the condition of being within, --somethingempty or dead, with a dull ache instead of consciousness.... 

The sleigh surmounted the long hill, swept at a trot around the edge of themountain through dark woods, then out into an unexpected plateau of openfields. There was a cluster of lights in a small village, and they came toa sudden stop before a little brick house that was swathed in spruceboughs, like a blanket drawn close about the feet, to keep out the storm. The door opened and against the lighted room a small black figure stoodout. Isabelle, stumbling numbly up the steps, fell into the arms ofMargaret Pole. 

"You must be nearly dead, poor dear! I have lighted a fire in your roomupstairs.... I am so glad you have come. I have hoped for it so long!"

When they were before the blazing wood fire, Margaret unfastened Isabelle'slong cloak and they stood, both in black, pale in the firelight, and lookedat each other, then embraced without a word. 

"I wanted to come, " Isabelle said at last when she was settled into the oldarm-chair beside the fire, "when you first wrote. But I was too ill. Iseemed to have lost not only strength but will to move.... It's good to behere. "

"They are the nicest people, these Shorts! He's a wheelwright andblacksmith, and she used to teach school. It's all very plain, like one ofour mountain places in Virginia; but it's heavenly peaceful--removed. You'll feel in a day or two that you have left everything behind you, downthere below!"

"And the children?"

"They are splendidly. And Ned is really getting better--the doctor hasworked a miracle for the poor little man. We think it won't be long nowbefore he can walk and do what the others do. And he is happy. He used tohave sullen fits, --resented his misfortune just like a grown person. He'sdifferent now!"

There was a buoyant note in Margaret's deep tones. Pale as she was in herblack dress and slight, --"the mere spirit of a woman, " as Falkner hadcalled her, --there was a gentler curve to the lips, less chafing in thesunken eyes. 

'I suppose it is a great relief, ' thought Isabelle, --'Larry's death, evenwith all its horror, --she can breathe once more, poor Margaret!'

"Tell me!" she said idly, as Margaret wheeled the lounge to the fire forIsabelle to rest on; "however did you happen to come up here to the land'send in Vermont--or is it Canada?"

"Grosvenor is just inside the line.... Why, it was the doctor--Dr. Renault, you know, the one who operated on Ned. I wanted to be near him. It was inJuly after Larry's death that we came, and I haven't been away since. And Ishall stay, always perhaps, at least as long as the doctor can do anythingfor the little man. And for me.... I like it. At first it seemed a bitlonesome and far away, this tiny village shut in among the hills, withnobody to talk to. But after a time you come to see a lot just here in thismite of a village. One's glasses become adjusted, as the doctor says, andyou can see what you have never taken the time to see before. There's astirring world up here on Grosvenor Flat! And the country is solovely, --bigger and sterner than my old Virginia hills, but not unlikethem. "

"And why does your wonderful doctor live out of the world like this?"

"Dr. Renault used to be in New York, you know, --had his own privatehospital there for his operations. He had to leave the city and his workbecause he was threatened with consumption. For a year he went the usualround of cures, --to the Adirondacks, out West; and he told me that onenight while he was camping on the plains in Arizona, lying awake watchingthe stars, it came to him suddenly that the one thing for him to do was tostop this health-hunt, go back where he came from, and go to work--andforget he was ill until he died. The next morning he broke camp, rode outto the railroad, came straight here from Arizona, and has been here eversince. "

"But why _here_?"

"Because he came from Grosvenor as a boy. It must be a Frenchfamily--Renault--and it is only a few miles north to the line.... So hecame here, and the climate or the life or something suits him wonderfully. He works like a horse!"

"Is he interesting, your doctor?" Isabelle asked idly. 

"That's as you take him, " Margaret replied with a little smile. "Not fromConny Woodyard's point of view, I should say. He has too many blind sides. But I have come to think him a really great man! And that, my dear, is morethan what we used to call 'interesting. '"

"But how can he do his work up here?"

"That's the wonderful part of it all! He's _made_ the world come tohim, --what he needs of it. He says there is nothing marvellous in it; thatall through the middle ages the sick and the needy flocked to remote spots, to deserts and mountain villages, wherever they thought help was to befound. Most great cures are not made even now in the cities. "

"But hospitals?"

"He has his own, right here in Grosvenor Flat, and a perfect one. The greatsurgeons and doctors come up here and send patients here. He has all he cando, with two assistants. "

"He must be a strong man. "

"You will see! The place is Renault. It all bears the print of his hand. Hesays himself that given a man with a real idea, a persistent idea, and hewill make the desert blossom like a garden or move mountains, --in some wayhe will make that idea part of the organism of life! ... There! I amquoting the doctor again, the third time. It's a habit one gets into uphere!"

At the tinkle of a bell below, Margaret exclaimed:--

"It's six and supper, and you have had no real rest. You see the hours areprimitive here, --breakfast at seven, dinner noon, and supper six. You willget used to it in a few days. "

The dining room was a corner of the old kitchen that had been partitionedoff. It was warm and bright, with an open fire, and the supper that Mrs. Short put on the table excellent. Mr. Short came in presently and took hisseat at the head of the table. He was a large man, with a bony facesoftened by a thick grizzled beard. He said grace in a low voice, and thenserved the food. Isabelle noticed that his large hands were finely formed. His manner was kindly, in a subtle way that of the host at his own table;but he said little or nothing at first. The children made the conversation, piping up like little birds about the table and keeping the older peoplelaughing. Isabelle had always felt that children at the table were a bore, either forward and a nuisance, or like little lynxes uncomfortablyabsorbing conversation, that was not suited to them. Perhaps that wasbecause she knew few families where children were socially educated to taketheir place at the table, being relegated for the most part to the nurse orthe governess. 

Isabelle was much interested in Mr. Short. His wife, a thin, gray-hairedwoman, who wore spectacles and had a timid manner of speaking, was less ofa person than the blacksmith. Sol Short, she found out later, had neverbeen fifty miles from Grosvenor Flat in his life, but he had the poise, theself-contained air of a man who had acquired all needed worldly experience. 

"Was it chilly coming up the Pass?" he asked Isabelle. "I thought 'twouldbe when it came on to blow some from the mountains. And Pete Jackson'shorses _are_ slow. "

"They seemed frozen!"

The large man laughed. 

"Well, you would take your time if you made that journey twice a day mostevery day in the year. You can't expect them to get exactly excited overit, can you?"

"Mr. Short, " Margaret remarked, "I saw a light this evening in the house onWing Hill. What can it be?"

"Some folks from down state have moved in, --renters, I take it. "

"How do you know that?"

"From the look of the stuff Bailey's boy was hauling up there this morning. It's travelled often. "

"Mr. Short, " Margaret explained merrily, "is the Grosvenor _Times_. Hisshop is the centre of our universe. From it he sees all that happens in ourworld--or his cronies tell him what he can't see. He knows what is going onin the remotest corner of the township, --what Hiram Bailey got for hispotatoes, where Bill King sold his apples, whether Mrs. Beans's second sonhas gone to the Academy at White River. He knows the color and the power ofevery horse, the number of cows on every farm, the make of everywagon, --everything!"

"Not so bad as all that!" the blacksmith protested. It was evidently afamily joke. "We don't gossip, do we, Jenny?"

"We don't gossip! But we keep our eyes open and tell what we see. "

It was a pleasant, human sort of atmosphere. After the meal the two friendswent back to Isabelle's couch and fire, Mrs. Short offering to put theyoungest child to bed for Margaret. 

"She likes to, " Margaret explained. "Her daughter has gone away tocollege.... It is marvellous what that frail-looking woman can do; she doesmost of the cooking and housework, and never seems really busy. Sheprepared this daughter for college! She makes me ashamed of the little Iaccomplish, --and she reads, too, half a dozen magazines and all the straybooks that come her way. "

"But how can you stand it?" Isabelle asked bluntly; "I mean for months. "

"Stand it? You mean the hours, the Strongs, Grosvenor? ... Why, I feelpositively afraid when I think that some day I may be shaken out of thisnest! You will see. It is all so simple and easy, so human and natural, just like Mr. Short's day's work, --the same thing for thirty years, eversince he married the school teacher and took this house. You'll hear himbuilding the fires to-morrow before daylight. He is at his shop atsix-thirty, home at twelve, back again at one, milks the cow at five, andsupper at six, bed at nine. Why, it's an Odyssey, that day, --as Mr. Shortlives it!"

Margaret opened the window and drew in the shutters. Outside it was verystill, and the snow was falling in fine flakes. 

"The children will be so glad to-morrow, " she remarked, "with all thissnow. They are building a large bob-sled under Mr. Short's direction.... No!" she resumed her former thread of thought. "It doesn't count so much aswe used to think--the variety of the thing you do, the change, --thenovelty. It's the mind you do it with that makes it worth while. "

Isabelle stared at the ceiling which was revealed fitfully by the dyingfire. She still felt dead, numb, but this was a peaceful sort of grave, soremote, so silent. That endless torturing thought--the chain of wearyreproach and useless speculation, which beset every waking moment--hadceased for the moment. It was like quiet after a perpetual whirring sound. 

She liked to look at Margaret, to feel her near, but she mused over her. She was changed. Margaret had had this disease, too, this weariness ofliving, the torturing doubt, --if this or that, the one thing or the other, had happened, it might have been different, --the haggling of defeated will!No wonder she was glad to be out of the city up here at peace.... 

"But one can't stay out of life for always, " she remonstrated. 

"Why not? What you call the world seems to get along very well without us, without any one in particular. And I don't feel the siren call, not yet!"

"But life can't be over at thirty-three, --one can't be really dead, Isuppose. "

"No, --just beginning!" Margaret responded with an elasticity that amazedIsabelle, who remembered the languid woman she had known so many years. "Just beginning, " she murmured, "after the journey in the dark. "

'Of course, ' mused Isabelle, 'she means the relief from Larry, the anxietyover the boy, --all that she has had to bear. Yes, for her there is somebeginning anew. She might possibly marry Rob Falkner now, if his wife gotsomebody else to look after her silly existence. Why shouldn't she?Margaret is still young, --she might even be pretty again. ' And Isabellewished to know what the situation was between Margaret and Falkner. 

Nothing, it seemed, could make any difference to herself! She ached to tellsome one of the despair in her heart, but even to Margaret she could notspeak. Since that summer morning six months before when Vickers had diedwithout a spoken word, she had never said his name. Her husband had mutelyrespected her muteness. Then she had been ill, --too ill to think or plan, too ill for everything but remembrance. Now it was all shut up, hertragedy, festering at the bottom of her heart like an undrained wound, poisoning her soul.... Suddenly in the midst of her brooding she woke witha start at something Margaret was saying, so unlike her reticent self. 

... "You knew, of course, about Larry's death?"

"Yes, John told me. "

"It was in the papers, too. "

"Poor Margaret!--I was so sorry for you--it was terrible!"

"You mustn't think of it that way, --I mean for me. It was terrible that anyhuman being should be where Larry got, --where he was hunted like a dog byhis own acts, and in sheer despair made an end of himself. I often think ofthat--think what it must be not to have the courage to go on, not to feelthe strength in yourself to live another hour!"

"It's always insanity. No sane person would do such a thing!"

"We call it insanity. But what difference does the name make?" Margaretsaid. "A human being falls into a state of mind where he is without onehope, one consideration, --all is misery. Then he takes what seems the onlyrelief--death--as he would food or drink; that is sad. "

"It was Larry's own doing, Margaret; he had his chance!"

"Of course, more than his chance--more than many chances. He was the kindof protoplasm that could not endure life, that carried in itself the seedof decay, --yet--yet--" She raised her pale face with the luminous eyes andsaid softly: "Sometimes I wonder if it had to be. When I look at little Nedand see how health is coming to that crippled body--the processes arerighting themselves--sound and healthy, ready to be helped back to life--Iwonder if it may not be so with other processes not wholly physical. Iwonder! ... Did you ever think, Isabelle, that we are waiting close toother worlds, --we can almost hear from them with our ears, --but we onlyhear confusedly so far. Some day we may hear more clearly!"

Margaret had reverted, Isabelle concluded, to the religion of her father, the Bishop! What she was vaguely talking about was the Bishop's heaven, inwhich the widow and orphan were counselled to take comfort. 

"I wish I could feel it, --what the church teaches, " Isabelle replied. "ButI can't, --it isn't real. I go to church and say over the creed and askmyself what it means, and feel the same way when I come out--or worse!"

"I don't mean religion--the church, " Margaret smiled back. "That has beendead for me a long time. It's something you come to feel within you aboutlife. I can't explain--only there might have been a light even for poorLarry in that last dreadful darkness! ... Some day I want to tell you allabout myself, something I have never told any one, --but it will help toexplain, perhaps.... Now you must go to bed, --I will send my black Sue upwith your coffee in the morning. "... 

Isabelle, as she lay awake in the stillness, the absolute hush of the snowynight, thought of what Margaret had said about her husband. John had toldher how Larry had gradually gone to the bad in a desultory, weak-kneedfashion, --had lost his clerkship in the A. And P. That Lane had got forhim; then had taken to hanging about the downtown hotels, betting a little, drinking a little, and finally one morning the curt paragraph in the paper:"Found, in the North River, body of a respectably dressed man about fortyyears. Papers on him show that he was Lawrence Pole of Westchester, " etc. , etc. 

And John's brief comment, --"Pity that he hadn't done it ten years ago. "Yes, thought Isabella, pity that he was ever born, the derelict, ever cameinto this difficult world to complicate further its issues. Margaretapparently had towards this worthless being who had marred her life asoftened feeling. But it was absurd of her now to think that she might haveloved him!

CHAPTER LVI

Long before it was light the next morning Isabelle heard the heavy tread ofthe blacksmith as he was going his rounds to light the fires; then shesnuggled deeper into bed. When Margaret's maid finally came with the coffeeand pushed back the heavy shutters, Isabelle looked out into another worldfrom the one she had come to half frozen the afternoon before. She hadentered the village from the rear, and now she looked off south and westfrom the level shelf on which the houses sat, across a broad valley, toblack woods and a sloping breast of hills, freshly powdered with snow, tothe blue sky-line, all as clear in the snow-washed mountain air as in adesert. The sun striking down into the valley brought out the faint azureof the inner folds of the hills. 

There was scarcely a footprint in the road to break the soft mass ofnew-fallen snow. Isabelle could see a black cat deliberately stealing itsway from the barn across the road to the house. It lifted each paw withdelicate precision and pushed it firmly into the snow, casting a deepshadow on the gleaming surface of white. The black cat, lean and muscular, stretching itself across the snow, was the touch of art needed to completethe silent scene.... 

A wood-sled drawn by two heavy horses came around the corner of the house, softly churning the new snow before its runners. A man clad in a burlysheepskin coat and fur cap, his feet in enormous rubber shoes, stood on thesled, slowly thrashing his arms and breathing frostily. 

"Hello, Sol!" the man cried to the blacksmith, who was shovelling a pathfrom the barn to the house. 

"Morning, Ed. Going up to Cross's lot?"

"Ye--as--"

"Hard sledding?"

The two men exchanged amicable nothings in the crisp, brilliant air throughwhich their voices rang with a peculiar timbre. To Isabelle, looking andlistening from her window, it was all so fresh, so simple, like a pictureon a Japanese print! For the first time in months she had a distinctdesire, --to get outside and look at the hills. 

"You are commanded, " announced Margaret, a little later, "to the doctor'sfor supper at six. That wasn't the way it was put exactly, but it amountsto the same thing. The doctor's least word is a command here.... Now I amoff to help the housekeeper with the accounts, --it's all I am good for!"... 

So Isabelle was left to set forth on her ramble of exploration by herself. She pushed through the snow to the last house on the village street, wherethe road dipped down a long hill, and the wide arc of northern mountainswas revealed in a glittering rampart. Her eyes filled involuntarily withtears. 

"I must be very weak, " she said to herself, "to cry because it'sbeautiful!" And sitting down on a rock by the road, she cried more, with afeeling of self-pity and a little self-contempt. An old woman came to thedoor of the house she had just passed with a dish-pan of water and lookedcuriously at the stranger. At first the countrywoman opened her lips as ifshe intended to speak, but stood with her dish-pan and said nothing. Isabelle could see through her tears the bent figure and battered face ofthe old woman, --a being without one line of beauty or even animal grace. What a fight life must have been to reduce any woman's body to that! Andthe purpose, --to keep the breath of life in a worn old body, just to live?

"Pleasant morning!" Isabelle said with a smile through her tears. 

"It ain't bad, " the old woman admitted, emptying her dish-pan. 

As Isabelle retraced her steps into the village the old woman followed herwith curious eyes, thinking no doubt that a woman like this stranger, welldressed, young, and apparently well fed, ought not to be sitting on a rockon a winter's day crying!

"And she's quite right!" Isabelle said to herself. 

The jewelled morning was the same to them both, --the outer world wasimperturbable in its circular variety. But the inner world, thevision, --ah, there was the extraordinary variation in human lives! Fromheaven to hell through all gradations, and whether it were heaven or helldid not depend on being like this crone at the end of the road or likeherself in its sheltered nooks, --it was something else. 

"I will have to see Margaret's wonderful doctor, if this keeps on, " shesaid, still dropping tears. 

The blacksmith stood beside the open door of his shop, gazing reflectivelyacross the white fields to the upland. Beside him was a broken wood-sledthat he was mending. Seeing Isabelle, he waved her a slow salute with thesled-runner he had ready in his hand. 

"Morning!" he called out in his deep voice. "Seeing the country? The hillsare extra fine this morning. "

He proceeded slowly to brush the snow from the frame of the sled, stillglancing now and then over the fields. Isabelle felt that she had caughthis characteristic moment, _his_ inner vision. 

"You have a good view from your shop. "

"The best in the town! I've always been grateful to my father for onething, --well, for many things, --but specially because he had the good senseto set the old smithy right here where you can see something. When thereisn't much going on, I come out of doors here and take a long look at themountains. It rests your back so. "

Isabelle sat down in the shop and watched Mr. Short repair the sled, interested in the slow, sure movements he made, the painstaking way inwhich he fitted iron and wood and riveted the pieces together. It must be arelief, she thought, to work with one's hands like that, --which men coulddo, forgetting the number of manual movements Mrs. Short also made duringthe same time. The blacksmith talked as he worked, in a gentle voicewithout a trace of self-consciousness, and Isabelle had again that sense ofVISION, of something inward and sustaining in this man of remote and narrowrange, --something that expressed itself in the slow speech, the peaceful, self-contained manner. As she went back up the street to the house thethick cloud of depression, of intangible misery, in which she had beenliving as it seemed to her for eternity, settled down once more, --thehabitual gait of her mind, like the dragging gait of her feet. She at leastwas powerless to escape the bitter food of idle recollection. 

 * * * * *

The doctor's house was a plain, square, white building, a little way abovethe main road, from which there was a drive winding through the spruces. Onthe sides and behind the house stretched one-story wings, also white andseverely plain. "Those are the wards, and the one behind is the operatingroom, " Margaret explained. 

The house inside was as plain as on the outside: there were no pictures, norugs, no useless furniture. The large hall divided the first floor in two. On the right was the office and the dining room, on the left with asoutherly exposure the large living room. There were great, blazing firesin all the rooms and in the hall at either side, --there was no otherheat, --and the odor of burning fir boughs permeated the atmosphere. 

"It's like a hospital almost, " Isabelle commented as they waited in theliving room. "And he has French blood! How can he stand it so--bare andcold?"

"The doctor's limitations are as interesting as his powers. He never has anewspaper in the house, nor a magazine, --burns them up if he finds themlying about. Yet he reads a great deal. He has a contempt for all the frothof immediate living, and still the whole place is the most modern, up-to-date contemporary machine of its kind!"

Outside was the blackness of the cold winter night; inside the grayness ofstained walls lighted by the glow from the blazing fires. A few pieces ofstatuary, copies of the work of the idealistic Greek period, stood in thehall and the living room. All that meant merely comfort, homelikeness--allin a word that was characteristically American--was wanting. Nevertheless, as Isabelle waited in the room she was aware of a peculiar grave beauty inits very exclusions. This house had the atmosphere of a mind. 

Some nurse came in and nodded to Margaret, then Mrs. Beck the matronappeared, and a couple of young doctors followed. They had been across thevalley on snow-shoes in the afternoon and were talking of their adventuresin the woods. There was much laughter and gayety--as if gathered here inthe wilderness these people all knew one another very well. After some timeIsabelle became aware of the entrance of another person, and turning aroundsaw a thin, slight man with a thick head of gray hair. His smooth-shavenface was modelled with many lines, and under the dark eyebrows that had notyet turned gray there were piercing black eyes. Although the talk and thelaughter did not die at once, there was the subtle movement among thepersons in the room which indicated that the master of the house hadappeared. Dr. Renault walked directly to Isabelle. 

"Good evening, Mrs. Lane. Will you come in to supper?"

He offered her his arm, and without further word of ceremony they went intothe dining room. At the table the doctor said little to her at first. Heleaned back in his chair, his eyes half closed, listening to the talk ofthe others, as if weary after a long day. Isabelle was puzzled by a senseof something familiar in the man at her side; she must have met him before, she could not tell where. The dining room, like the living room, wassquare, panelled with white wood, and the walls stained. It was bare exceptfor several copies of Tanagra figurines in a recess above the chimney andtwo large photographs of Greek athletes. The long table, made of heavy oakplanks, had no cloth, and the dishes were of the coarsest earthenware, suchas French peasants use. 

The talk was lively enough, --about two new cases that had arrived thatafternoon, the deer-hunting season that had just closed, bear tracksdiscovered on Bolton Hill near the lumber-camp, and a new piano that afriend had sent for the convalescent or "dotty" ward, as they called it. The young doctor who sat at Isabelle's right asked her if she could play orsing, and when she said no, he asked her if she could skee. Those were theonly personal remarks of the meal. Margaret, who was very much at home, entered into the talk with unwonted liveliness. It was a workshop of busymen and women who had finished the day's labor with enough vitality left toreact. The food, Isabelle noticed, was plentiful and more than good. At theend of the meal the young men lighted cigarettes, and one of the nursesalso smoked, while a box of cigars was placed before Renault. Some onebegan to sing, and the table joined the chorus, gathering about thechimney, where there were a couple of settles. 

It was a life, so Isabelle saw, with an order of its own, a direction ofits own, a strong undercurrent. Its oddity and nonchalance were refreshing. Like one of the mountain brooks it ran its own course, strong and liquidbeneath the snow, to its own end. 

"You seem to have a very good time up here among yourselves!" Isabelle saidto the doctor, expressing her wonder frankly. 

"And why not?" he asked, a smile on his thin lips. He helped himself to acigar, still looking at her whimsically, and biting off its end held amatch ready to strike, as if awaiting her next remark. 

"But don't you ever want to get away, to go back to the city? Don't youfeel--isolated?"

"Why should we? Because there's no opera or dinner parties? We have adinner party every night. " He lighted his cigar and grinned at Isabelle. "The city delusion is one of the chief idiocies of our day. City peopleencourage the idea that you can't get on without their society. Man was notmeant to live herded along sidewalks. The cities breed the diseases for usdoctors, --that is their one great occupation. "

He threw the match into the fire, leaned back in his chair with his handsknit behind his head, and fastening his black eyes on Isabelle began totalk. 

"I lived upwards of twenty years in cities with that same delusion, --notdaring to get more than a trolley-car fare away from the muck and noise. Then I was kicked out, --had to go, thank God! On the Arizona plains Ilearned to know what an idiot I had been to throw away the better half of alife in a place where you have to breathe other peoples' bad air. Why, there isn't room to think in a city! I never used to think, or only at oddmoments. I lived from one nervous reflex to another, and took most of myideas from other folks. Now I do my own thinking. Just try it, young woman;it is a great relief!"

"But--but--" Isabelle stammered, laughing in spite of herself. 

"You know, " Renault bore on tranquilly, "there's a new form of mentaldisease you might call 'pavementitis'--the pavement itch. When the patienthas it badly, so that he can't be happy when removed from his customaryenvironment, he is incurable. A man isn't a sound man, nor a woman ahealthy woman, who can't stand alone on his own two legs and be nourishedintellectually and emotionally away from the herd.... That young fellow whohas just gone out was a bad case of pavementitis when he came tome, --couldn't breathe comfortably outside the air of New York. Hard worker, too. He came up here to 'rest. ' Rest! Almost nobody needs rest. What theywant is hard work and tranquil minds. I put him on his job the day he came. You couldn't drive him away now! Last fall I sent him back to see if thecure was complete. Telegraphed me in a week that he was coming up, --lifewas too dull down there! ... And that little black-haired woman who istalking to Mrs. Pole, --similar case, only it was complicated. She wasneurotic, hysterical, insomniac, melancholy, --the usual neurasthenicticket. Had a husband who didn't suit or a lover, I suspect, and it gotfastened in the brain, --rode her. She's my chief nurse in the surgical wardnow, --a tremendous worker; can go three nights without sleep if necessaryand knows enough to sleep soundly when she gets the chance.... Has relapsesof pavementitis now and then, when some of her fool friends write her; butI fix that! ... So it goes; I have had incurable cases of course, as ineverything else. The only thing to do with 'em then is to send them back tosuck their poison until it kills. "

The whimsical tone of irony and invective made Isabelle laugh, and alsosubtly changed her self-preoccupation. Evidently Dr. Renault was not aPotts to go to with a long story of woe. 

"I thought it was surgery, your specialty, " she remarked, "not nervousprostration. "

"We do pretty much everything here--as it is needed. Come in to-morrowmorning sometime and look the shop over. "

He rose, threw away his cigar, and at this signal the group scattered. Renault, Margaret, and Isabelle went back to the bare living room, wherethe doctor stood silently in front of the fireplace for a few minutes, asthough expecting his guests to leave. When they started, he threw open along window and beckoned to Isabelle to follow him. Outside there was abroad platform running out over the crest of the hill on which the housewas built. The land beyond fell away sharply, then rose in a wooded swellto the northern mountains. The night was dark with glittering starlightabove, and the presence of the white masses of the hills could be feltrather than seen, --brooding under the stars. There was the tinkle of asleigh-bell on the road below, --the only sound in the still night. 

"There!" Renault exclaimed. "Is there anything you would like to swap forthis?"

He breathed deeply of the frosty air. 

"It seems almost as if a voice were speaking in the silence!"

"Yes, " Renault assented gravely. "There is a voice, and you can hear it uphere--if you listen. "

CHAPTER LVII

On their way home the two women discussed the doctor eagerly. 

"I must have seen Dr. Renault somewhere, " Isabelle said, "or rather what hemight have been once. He's a person!"

"That is it, --he is a person, --not just a doctor or a clever surgeon. "

"Has he other regular patients besides the children, the surgical cases?"

"He started with those alone. But latterly, they tell me, he has becomemore interested in the nervous ward, --what he calls the 'dotty'ward, --where there are chiefly convalescent children or incurable nervousdiseases of children. It is wonderful what he does with them. The power hehas over them is like the power of the old saints who worked miracles, --areligious power, --or the pure force of the will, if you prefer. "

After her evening with Renault, Isabelle felt that Margaret's descriptionmight not be too fervid. 

Towards morning Isabelle woke, and in the sudden clarity of the silent hourthoughts flowed through her with wonderful vividness. She saw Renault'sface and manner, his sharp eyes, his air of dictation, arrogant and at thesame time kindly, --yes, there was a power in the man! As Margaret had putit, --a religious power. The word set loose numberless thoughts, distastefulones, dead ones. She saw the respectable Presbyterian caravansary in St. Louis where the family worshipped, --sermons, creeds, dogmas, --the littlestone chapel at Grafton where she had been confirmed, and her attempt tobelieve herself moved by some spiritual force, expressed in the formulasthat the old clergyman had taught her. Then the phrases rose in her mind. It might have done her good once, --people found it helpful, --womenespecially in their hours of trial. She disliked the idea of leaning forhelp on something which in her hours of vigor she rejected. A refuge, anexplanation, --no, it was not possible! The story of the atonement, therewards, the mystical attempt to explain the tragedy of life, its sorrowand pain, --no, it was childish! So the word "religious" had something in itrepellent, sickly, and self-deceptive.... Suddenly the words stood outsharply in her mind, --"What we need is a new religion!" A newreligion, --where had she heard that? ... Another flash in her broodingconsciousness and there came the face of the doctor, the face of the manwho had talked to her one Sunday afternoon at the house where there hadbeen music. She remembered that she wished the music would not interrupttheir conversation. Yes, he was bidding her good-by, at the steps, his hatraised in his hand, and he had said with that same whimsical smile, "Whatwe need is a new religion!" It was an odd thing to say in the New Yorkstreet, after an entirely delightful Sunday afternoon of music. Now theface was older, more tense, yet with added calm. Had he found his religion?And with a wistful desire to know what it was, the religion that madeRenault live as he did, Isabelle dropped once more to sleep. 

 * * * * *

When Isabelle presented herself at the doctor's house the next morning, ashe had suggested, the little black-haired nurse met her and made Renault'sexcuses. The doctor was occupied, but would try to join her later. Meanwhile would she like to look over the operating room and the surgicalward? The young doctor who had been afflicted with pavementitis--a large, florid, blond young man--showed her through the operating room, explainingto her the many devices, the endless well-thought-out detail, from theplumbing to the special electric lighting. 

"It's absolutely perfect, Mrs. Lane!" he summed up, and when Isabellesmiled at his enthusiasm, he grew red of face and stuttered in his effortto make her comprehend all that his superlative meant. "I know what I amsaying. I have been all over Europe and this country. Every surgeon whocomes here says the same thing. You can't even _imagine_ anything thatmight be better. There isn't much in the world where you can't imagine asomething better, an improvement. There's almost always a better to be hadif you could get it. But here, no! ... Porowitz, the great Viennaorthopaedic surgeon, was here last winter, and he told me there wasn't ahospital in the whole world where the chances for recovery, taking it allround, were as large as up here in Grosvenor Flat, Vermont. Think of it!And there is no hospital that keeps a record where the percentage ofsuccessful operations is as high as ours.... That's enough to say, Iguess, " he concluded solemnly, wiping his brow. 

In the surgical ward the wasted, white faces of the sick children disturbedIsabelle. It all seemed neat, quiet, pleasant. But the physical dislike ofsuffering, cultivated by the refinement of a highly individualistic age, made her shudder. So much there was that was wrong in life to be maderight, --partly right, never wholly right.... It seemed useless, almostsentimentalism, to attempt this patching of diseased humanity.... 

In the convalescent ward, Margaret was sitting beside a cot reading to herboy. 

"He'll be home in a few days now!" she said in answer to Isabelle's glance. "Some day he will be a great football player. "

The child colored at the reference to his ailment. 

"I can walk now, " he said, "a little. "

Dr. Renault was at the other end of the ward sitting beside a girl oftwelve, with one arm about her thin back, talking to her. The child's facewas stained with half-dried tears. Presently the doctor took the child upand carried her to the window, and continued to talk to her, pointing outof the window. After a time he joined Isabelle, saying:--

"I was kept from meeting you when you came by that little girl over there. She is, by the way, one of our most interesting cases. Came here for hipdisease. She is an orphan, --nothing known about her parents, --probablyalcoholic from the mental symptoms. She has hysteria and undevelopedsuicidal mania. "

"What can you do for her?"

"What we can with medicine and surgery, and where that fails--we try othermeans. "

Isabelle was eager to know what were those "other means, " but the doctorwas not a man to be questioned. Presently as he sauntered through the roomhe volunteered:--

"I have been talking to her, --telling her how the hills are made.... Yousee we have to clean out their minds as well as their bodies, get rid sofar as we can of the muddy deposit, both the images associated with theirenvironment--that is done by bringing them up here--and also what might becalled inherited thought processes. Give 'em a sort of spiritual purge, inother words, " he said with a smile. "Then we can build up, feed their mindssomething fresh. Sarah Stern there is an obstinate case, --she has a deepdeposit of ancestral gloom. "

"But you can't overcome the temperament, the inherited nature!"

Renault waved his hand impatiently. 

"You've been told that since you were born. We have all grown up in thatbelief, --it is the curse of the day! ... It can't be done altogether--yet. Sarah may revert and cut her throat when she leaves here.... But the vitalwork for medicine to-day is to see just how much can be done to changetemperament, --inherited nature, as you call it. In other words, to put newforces to work in diseased brains. Perhaps some day we can do it all, --whoknows?"

"Plant new souls in place of the old!"

Renault nodded gravely. 

"That's the true medicine--the root medicine, --to take an imperfectorganism and develop it, mould it to the perfected idea. Life isplastic, --human beings are plastic, --that is one important thing toremember!"

"But you are a surgeon?"

Renault's lips quivered with one of his ironical smiles. 

"I was a surgeon, just as I was a materialist. When I was young, I wascaught by the lure of so-called science, and became a surgeon, because itwas precise, definite, --and I am something of a dab at it now--ask the boyshere! ... But surgery is artisan work. Younger hands will always beat you. Pallegrew in there is as good as I am now. There is nothing creative insurgery; it is on the order of mending shoes. One needs to get beyondthat.... And here is where we get beyond patching.... Don't think we arejust cranks here. We do what we can with the accepted tools, --the knife andthe pill. But we try to go farther--a little way. "

They descended to the basement of the main house where the more activechildren were playing games. 

"We have to teach some of them the primitive instincts, --the play instinct, for example, --and we have a workroom, where we try to teach them theabsorbing excitement of work.... I am thinking of starting a school next. Don't you want to try a hand at a new sort of education?"

So, pausing now and then to joke with a child or speak to an assistant, Renault took Isabelle over his "shop" once more, explaining casually hispurposes. As a whole, it developed before her eyes that here was alaboratory of the human being, a place where by different processes thediseased, the twisted, the maimed, the inhibited, the incomplete wereanalyzed and reconstructed. As they emerged on the broad platform wherethey had stood the night before, Isabelle asked:--

"Why is it you work only with children?"

"Because I started with the little beggars.... And they are more plastic, too. But some day the same sort of thing will be done with adults. For weare all plastic.... Good-day!" and he walked away rapidly in the directionof his office. 

Isabelle returned to the village in a strange excitement of impressions andthoughts. She felt as if she had been taken up out of the world that shehad lived in and suddenly introduced to a planet which was motived bytotally other ideas than those of the world she knew. Here was a lifelaboratory, a place for making over human character as well as tissue. Andin bravado, as it were, the mere refuse of human material was chosen to bemade anew, with happiness, effectiveness, health! She realized that asatisfactory understanding of it would come slowly; but walking here in thewinter sunshine along the village street, she had that sensation ofstrangeness which the child has on coming from the lighted playhouse intothe street.... The set vision that tormented her within--that, too, mightit not be erased?

About the post-office people were gathered gossiping and laughing, waitingfor the noon mail to be distributed. Country-women in fur coats drove up indingy cutters to do their Saturday shopping. The wood-sleds went joggingpast towards the valley. School children were recklessly sliding down thecross street into the main road. Sol Short was coming over from his shop toget his paper... Here the old world was moving along its wonted grooves inthis backwater community. But over it all like the color swimming over thehills was SOMETHING more, --some aspect of life unseen! And faintly, verydimly, Isabelle began to realize that she had never really beenalive, --these thirty years and more. 

"We are all plastic, " she murmured, and looked away to the hills. 

CHAPTER LVIII

Life at Grosvenor moved on in a placid routine, day after day. What withher children and the engrossing work at the doctor's Margaret was busyevery morning, and Isabelle rarely saw her before the noon meal. Then atthe plentiful dinner over which the blacksmith presided with a gentlecourtesy and sweetness there was gossip of the hospital and the village, while Short, who had the father instinct, entertained the children. He knewall the resources of the country, every animal wild or tame, every rod ofwood and pasture and hill. The little Poles opened him like an atlas orencyclopedia. 

"Mr. Wilson begins to haul from his lot to-morrow, " he would announce fortheir benefit. "I guess he'll take you up to the clearing where the men arecutting if you look for him sharp. And when you get there, you want to finda very tall man with a small head. That's Sam Tisdell, --and you tell him Isaid he would show you the deer run and the yard the deer have made backthere a piece behind the clearing. "

Then he told them how, when he was a young man, he had hunted for deer onthe mountains and been caught one time in a great snowstorm, almost losinghis life. 

"The children have so much to do and to think about here in Grosvenor thatthey are no trouble at all. They never have to be entertained, " Margaretremarked. "Mr. Short is much better for them than a Swiss governess withthree languages!"

 * * * * *

There were long evenings after the six o'clock suppers, which the twofriends spent together usually, reading or talking before Isabelle's fire. Wherever the talk started, it would often gravitate to Renault, hispersonality dominating like some mountain figure the community. Margarethad been absorbed into the life of the hospital with its exciting yetorderly movement. There were new arrivals, departures, difficult cases, improvements and failures to record. She related some of the slowly wroughtmiracles she had witnessed during the months that she had been there. 

"It all sounds like magic, " Isabelle had said doubtfully. 

"No, that is just what it isn't, " Margaret protested; "the doctor'sprocesses are not tricks, --they are evident. "

And the two discussed endlessly these "processes" whereby minds were usedto cure matter, the cleansing of the soul, --thought substitution, suggestion, the relationship of body and mind. And through all the talk, through the busy routine of the place, in the men and women working in thehospital, there emerged always that something unseen, --Idea, Will, Spirit, the motiving force of the whole. Isabelle felt this nowhere more stronglythan in the change in Margaret herself. It was not merely that she seemedalert and active, wholly absorbed in the things about her, but more in themarvellous content which filled her. And, as Isabelle reflected, Margaretwas the most discontented woman she had known; even before she married, shewas ever hunting for something. 

"But you can't stay here always, " Isabelle said to her one evening. "Youwill have to go back to the city to educate the children if for no otherreason. "

"Sometimes I think I shan't go back! Why should I? ... You know I havealmost no money to live on. " (Isabelle suspected that Larry's last yearshad eaten into the little that had been left of Margaret's fortune). "Thechildren will go to school here. It would be useless to educate them abovetheir future, which must be very plain. "

"But you have a lot of relatives who would gladly help you--and them. "

"They might, but I don't think I want their help--even for the children. Iam not so sure that what we call advantages, a good start in life, and allthat, is worth while. I had the chance--you had it, too--and what did wemake of it?"

"Our children need not repeat our mistakes, " Isabelle replied with a sigh. 

"If they were surrounded with the same ideas, they probably would!" ... 

"The doctor has thrown his charm over you!"

"He has saved my life!" Margaret murmured; "at least he has shown me how tosave it, " she corrected. 

There it was again, the mysterious Peace that possessed her, that hadtouched Margaret's hard, defiant spirit and tamed it. But Isabelle, remembering the letters with the Panama postmark she had seen lying on thehall table, wondered, and she could not help saying:--

"You are young yet, Margaret, --oh, it might be--happiness, all that youhave missed!"

"No!" Margaret replied, with a little smile. "I--think not!"

She closed her eyes as if she were contemplating that other happiness, andafter a silence she opened them and touched Isabelle's hand. 

"I want to tell you something, dear.... I loved Rob Falkner, very much, themost a woman can. "

"I knew it! ... I felt it.... That it only might be!"

"He came to me, " Margaret continued, "when I was hard and bitter aboutlife, when I was dead.... It was the kind of love that women dream of, ours, --the perfect thing you feel in your heart has always beenthere, --that takes all of you! ... It was good for us both--he needed me, and I needed him. "

"Margaret!"

"I was wonderfully happy, with a dreadful happiness that was two partspain, pain for myself, and more pain for him, because he needed me, youunderstand, and it could not be--I could not live with him and give him thefood he hungered for--love. "

Isabelle kissed the wistful face, "I know, " she said. "I want to tell youmore--but you may not understand! ... He had to go away. It was best; itwas his work, his life, and I should have been a poor weak fool to let ourlove stand in the way. So it was decided, and I urged him to go. He came tosee me at Bedmouth before he left, --a few days, a few hours of love. And wesaw how it would have to be, that we should have to go on loving and livingin the spirit, for as long as our love lasted, apart. We faced that. But--but--"

Margaret hesitated and then with shining eyes went on in a low voice. 

"It was not enough what we had had! I was not ready to let him go, to seehim go--without all. He never asked--I gave him all. We went away to haveour love by ourselves, --to live for each other just a few days. He took meaway in his boat, and for a few days, a few nights, we had our love--we sawour souls. "

She waited, breathing fast, then controlled herself. 

"Those hours were more than ordinary life. They do not seem to me real evennow, or perhaps they are the most real thing in all I have known. It waslove before the parting--before Fate.... When it was all over, we went backto earth. I returned, to Mother Pole's house in Bedmouth, and I went up tothe children's room and took my baby in my arms and kissed her, my littlegirl. And I knew that it had been right, all pure and holy, and I was glad, oh, so glad that it had been, that we had had the courage!"

Isabelle pressed the hand she held close to her breast and watched theshining face. 

"And I have never felt differently--never for one moment since. It was thegreatest thing that ever came to me, and it seems to me that I should neverreally have lived if it had not been for those days--those nights anddays--and the heaven that we saw!"

"Then how can you speak as if life were ended now--"

Margaret held her hand before her face and did not answer. "It might bepossible--for you both.... She never really cared for Rob, --she left himand took her child when they sold their house--because she wasdisappointed. And she has refused to go to him ever since. "

"I know all that, " Margaret murmured; "that is not it wholly. I can't tell. I don't know yet. It is not clear.... But I know that I am proud and gladof what has been, --of our love in its fulness and glory. And I know it wasnot sin! Nothing can make it so to me. "

She had risen and stood proudly before Isabelle. 

"It has made living possible for him and for me, --it has made it somethingnoble and great, to feel this in our souls.... I wanted to tell you; Ithought you would understand, and I did not want you to be wrong aboutme, --not to know me all!"

She knelt and buried her head in Isabelle's lap, and when she raised herface there were tears falling from the eyes. 

"I don't know why I should cry!" she exclaimed with a smile. "I don'toften.... It was all so beautiful. But we women cry when we can't expressourselves any other way!"

"I shall always hope--"

Margaret shook her head. 

"I don't know.... There are other things coming, --another revelation, perhaps! I don't think of what will be, dear. "

But womanwise, Isabelle thought on after Margaret had left, of Falkner andMargaret, of their love. And why shouldn't it come to them, she askedherself? The other, Falkner's marriage, had been a mistake for both, aterrible mistake, and they had both paid for it. Bessie could have made itpossible if she had wanted to, if she had had it in her. She had herchance. For him to go back to her now, with the gulf between them of allthis past, was mere folly, --just conventional wrong-headedness. And itwould probably be no better for Bessie if he were to make the sacrifice.... The revelation that Margaret had hinted of had not come to Isabelle. Shelay awake thinking with aching heart of her own story, --its tragic ending. But _he_ was not a man, --that, too, had been a mistake!

 * * * * *

Isabelle, largely left to herself, for occupation drove about the snowyhills, sometimes taking with her for company one of the convalescents or anurse, often alone, liking the solitude of the winter spaces. Sometimes shewent to the blacksmith's shop and talked with the old man, learning thegenealogy and the sociology of the neighborhood. The text for Sol Short'swisdom was ever at hand in the passers-by. Ending one of his transcripts, he made a phrase that lingered in Isabelle's mind long afterward. "So shewas left a charge upon the property, " he said of an old woman that had comeout of one of the village houses. "Aunt Mehitabel went with the house. Whenit was sold, she had to be taken over by the new owner, and her keepprovided. And there she is now, an old woman in ill health and ill temper. I don't know as there is a worse combination. "... 

"I wonder why I stay, " Isabelle said to Margaret after nearly two monthshad slipped by. "I am quite rested, as well as I shall ever be, I believe. You don't need me. Nobody does exactly! Molly writes me very contentedlittle letters. Mother is staying with her, and she is at the party age, and would be terribly bored to come here, as you suggested. John is in St. Louis; he seems to have a good deal to do out there this winter. So you seemy little world gets on perfectly without me. "

"Better stay here, then, " Margaret urged, "until spring. It will do yougood. You haven't exhausted the doctor yet!"

"I almost never see him, and when he does remember me he chaffs me as if Iwere a silly child. No, I think I will go next week. "

But she did not wish to leave. The winter peace of the little village hadbeen like an enveloping anodyne to her weary body and mind. Removed fromall her past, from the sights and the people that suggested those obsessingthoughts which had filled her waking hours with dreariness, she had sunkinto the simple routine of Grosvenor as the tired body sinks into a softbed. The daily sight of the snowy fields, the frozen hillsides black withforests, and the dry spirituous air, lifted her. Now and then the effect ofthe anodyne wore off and the old gnawing pain, or a sodden sense offutility, overwhelmed her afresh. "It will never get straight!" she said, thinking in the terms of Potts's specifics. "I am somehow wrong, and I mustgo all my life with this torture--or worse--until I die!" And the wholepanorama of her little life would unroll before her in the sleepless hoursof the still night: her girl ambitions, her mistaken marriage, her strivingfor experience, for life, to satisfy--what? Then her mistaken love, andVickers's sacrifice, and the blackness afterwards, --the mistake of it all!"They'll be better without me, --mother and Molly and John! Let me die!" shecried. Then illogically she would think of Renault and wonder what _he_could do for her. But she shrank from baring herself before his piercinggaze. "He would say I was a fool, and he would be right!"

So she went out into the cold country and walked miles over the frozenfields through the still woods, trying to forget, only to return stillridden by her thoughts, --bitter tears for Vickers, sometimes almostreproach for his act. "If he had let me plunge to my fate, it would havebeen better than this! I might never have known my mistake, --it would havebeen different, all of it different. Now there is nothing!" And at the endof one of these black moods she resolved to return to her world and "gothrough the motions as others do. What else? Perhaps it will be better whenI am distracted. Potts will give me something to brace me. "... 

But Isabelle did not return to the city and get that prescription from thegreat Potts. 

CHAPTER LIX

Just as Isabelle had completed her packing on Sunday afternoon, a messagecame to her from Dr. Renault through Margaret. "We need another woman, --twoof our nurses have been called away and a third is sick. Will you give ussome help?"

"I am going up myself for the night, " Margaret added. "They are badlypushed, --six new cases the last three days. "

So the night found Isabelle under the direction of Mrs. Felton, the littleblack-haired woman whose "case" the doctor had analyzed for her. It was along night, and the next morning, all the experienced nurses being neededat an operation, Isabelle went on. The day was full and also the next two. The hospital force was inadequate, and though the doctor had telegraphedfor help there would be no relief for a week. So Isabelle was caught up inthe pressing activity of this organism and worked by it, impelled withouther own will, driven hard as all around her were driven by thecircumstances behind her. Dr. Renault abhorred noise, disorder, excitement, confusion of any kind. All had to run smoothly and quietly as if in perfectcondition. He himself was evident, at all hours of day or night, chaffing, dropping his ironical comments, listening, directing, --the inner force ofthe organism. One night the little nurse dropped asleep, clearly worn out, and Isabelle sent her to bed. The ward was quiet; there was nothing to bedone. Isabelle, pacing to and fro in the glass sun parlor to keep herselfawake, suddenly became aware of the stillness within her. It was as if somenoisy piece of machinery had ceased to revolve without her having noticedit. It was possible for her in this quiet moment to realize this: for thefirst time in five days she had not thought of herself. For five days shehad not consciously thought! Doubtless she would have to pay for thisdebauch of work. She would collapse. But for five days she had not knownwhether she felt ill or well, was happy or distressed. Excitement--to bepaid for! She shrank from the weary round of old thought that must come, the revolution of the wheels within. For five days she had not thought, shehad not cared, she had not known herself! That must be the opiate of thepoor, driven by labor to feed and clothe themselves; of the ambitious, driven by hope and desire.... She must work, too; work was a good thing. Why had Potts not included it in his panaceas? ... 

Later when she walked back into the still ward, she thought she heard astifled breathing, but when she went the rounds of the cots, all was still. It was not until nearly morning that she noticed something wrong with alittle boy, observing the huddled position of the limbs drawn up beneaththe blanket. She felt of his face--it was cold. Frightened, she hurried tothe bell to summon the night doctor. As she reached it Renault entered theward and with a warning hand brought her back to the cot. He put hisfingers swiftly here and there on the child's body. 

"Where is Mrs. Felton?" he demanded severely. 

"She was so worn out I persuaded her to get some rest. Have I neglectedanything?--is anything wrong?"

"The child is dead, " Renault replied, straightening himself and covering upthe little form. 

"Oh, I have--done something wrong!"

"It would have made no difference what you did, " the doctor replied dryly. "Nothing would have made any difference. There was the millionth part of achance, and it was not for him. "

As they stood looking down at the dead face, it seemed to Isabelle thatsuddenly he had become a person, this dead child, with his lost millionthof a chance, --not merely one of the invalids sleeping in the room. For thisbrief moment when life had ceased to beat in his frail body, and beforedecay had begun, there was an individuality given him that he had neverachieved in life. 

"Poor little fellow!" Isabelle murmured softly. "He must have suffered somuch. " Then with that common consolation with which the living evade thethought of death, she added, "He has escaped more pain; it is better so, perhaps!"

"No--that is wrong!"

Renault, standing beside the bed, his arms folded across his breast, lookedup from the dead child straight into the woman's eyes. 

"That is false!" he cried with sudden passion. "Life is GOOD--all ofit--for every one. "

He held her eyes with his glance while his words reverberated through herbeing like the CREDO of a new faith. 

 * * * * *

When another nurse had come to relieve Isabelle, she left the ward with thedoctor. As they went through the passageway that led to the house, Renaultsaid in his usual abrupt tone:--

"You had better run home, Mrs. Lane, and get some sleep. To-morrow will beanother hard day. "

She wheeled suddenly and faced him. 

"How dare you say that life is good for any other human being! What do_you_ know of another's agony, --the misery that existence may mean, thedaily woe?"

Her passionate burst of protest died in a sob. 

"I say it because I believe it, because I _know_ it!"

"No one can know that for another. "

"For animals the account of good and evil may be struck, the pains setagainst the satisfactions that life offers. When we judge that the balanceis on the wrong side, we are merciful, --put the creature out of its misery, as we say. But no human being is an animal in that sense. And no humanbeing can cast his balance of good and evil in that mechanical way--nor anyone else for him!"

"But one knows for himself! When you suffer, when all is blank within andyou cry as Job cried, --'would God it were morning, and in the morning wouldGod it were night!' then life is _not_ good. If you could be some one elsefor a few hours, then you might understand--what defeat and living death--"

Oh, if she could tell! The impulse to reveal surged in her heart, that deephuman desire to call to another across the desert, so that some one besidesthe silent stars and the wretched Self may know! Renault waited, hiscompelling eyes on her face. 

"When you have lost the most in your life--hope, love! When you have killedthe best!" she murmured brokenly. "Oh, I can't say it! ... I can never sayit--tell the whole. "

Tears fell, tears of pity for the dead child, for herself, for thefine-wrought agony of life. 

"But I know!" Renault's voice, low and calm, came as it were from a shutcorner of his heart. "I have felt and I have seen--yes, Defeat, Despair, Regret--all the black ghosts that walk. "

Isabelle raised her eyes questioningly. 

"And it is because of that, that I can raise my face to the stars and say, 'It is good, all good--all that life contains. ' And the time will come whenyou will repeat my words and say to them, 'Amen. '"

"That I could!"

"We are not animals, --there is the Unseen behind the Seen; the Unknownbehind the Observed. There is a Spirit that rises within us to slay theghosts, to give them the lie. Call upon it, and it will answer.... ForPeace is the rightful heritage of every soul that is born. "

"Not Peace. "

"Yes, --I say Peace! Health, perhaps; happiness, perhaps; efficiency, perhaps. But Peace always lies within the grasp of whomsoever will stretchout his hand to possess it. " ... 

As they stopped at the house door and waited in the deep silence of thedark morning, Renault put his hands on Isabelle's shoulders:--

"Call to it, and it will come from the depths! ... Goodnight. "

There in the still dawning hour, when the vaulted heavens seemed broodingclose to the hills and the forests, these two affirmations of a creed rangin Isabella's soul like the reverberating chords of some mystic promise:--

"Life is good ... All of it ... For every one!" And, "Peace is the rightfulheritage of every soul. It lies within the grasp of whomsoever will stretchout his hand to possess it. "

It was still within her. 

CHAPTER LX

When Isabelle woke, the morning sun fretted the green shutters. She wastired in every limb, --limp, content to lie in bed while Mrs. Strong lightedthe fire, threw open the shutters, and brought breakfast and the mail. Through the east windows the sun streamed in solidly, flooding thecounterpane, warming the faded roses of the wall paper. A bit of the northrange of hills, the flat summit of Belton's Top with a glittering ice-cap, she could see above the gray gable of the barn. The sky was a soft, cloudless blue, and the eaves were busily dripping in a drowsy persistency. 

She liked to lie there, watching the sun, listening to the drip, herletters unopened, her breakfast untouched. She was delightfully emptyof thoughts. But one idea lay in her mind, --she should stay on, here, just here. Since she had packed her trunk the Sunday before, a great dealseemed to have happened, --a space had been placed between the outer worldthat she had restlessly turned back towards and herself. Some day sheshould go back to that other world--to Molly and John and all the rest. But not now--no!... 

As she lay there, slowly the little things of the past weeks since she hadtravelled the cold road from White River--the impressions, the sights, theideas--settled into her thought, pushing back the obstinate obsessions thathad possessed her for months. The present began to be important, to driveout the past. Outside in the street some one whistled, the bells of thepassing sleds jangled, a boy's treble halloa sounded far away, --unconsciousvoices of the living world, like the floating clouds, the noise of runningwater, the drip of the melting snow on the eaves, --so good it all was andreal! ... 

Margaret had found that Peace the doctor had spoken of, Margaret whosedelicate curving lips had always seemed to her the symbol of discontent, ofthe inadequacy of life. Margaret had found it, and why not she? ... Thatexplained the difference she felt these days in Margaret. There had alwaysbeen something fine and sweet in the Southern woman, something sympatheticin her touch, in the tone of her voice even when she said cynical things. Now Margaret never said bitter things, even about the wretched Larry. Shehad always been a listener rather than a talker, but now there was a balmin her very presence, a touch upon the spirit, like a cool hand on thebrow. Yes! She had found that rightful heritage of Peace and breathed itall around her, like warmth and light. 

Margaret came in with the noon mail, which she had collected from the boxin the post-office. As she tossed the papers and letters on the bed, Isabelle noticed another of the oblong letters in the familiar handwritingfrom Panama.... 

"Or is it that?" she asked herself for a moment, and then was ashamed. Thesmile, the clear look out of the deep eyes, the caressing hand that strokedher face, all said no, --it was not that! And if it were, it must be good. 

"So you are going to stay with us a while longer, Isabelle.... I shallunpack your trunk and hide it, " Margaret said with smiling conviction. 

"Yes, --I shall stay, for the present.... Now I must get into my clothes. I've been lazing away the whole morning here--not even reading my letters!"

"That's right, " Margaret drawled. "Doing nothing is splendid for thetemperament. That's why the darkies have such delightful natures. They cansit whole days in the sun and never think a thought. " With her hand on thedoor she turned: "You must send for Molly, --it will be good for her toforget the dancing lessons and frocks. My children will take her down toMill Hill and make a boy of her. "

"Well, --but she will be a nuisance, I am afraid. She is such a younglady. "... 

At last Isabelle tore open a letter from her husband, one that Margaret hadjust brought. It was concise and dry, in the economical epistolary styleinto which they had dropped with each other. He was glad to hear that herrest in the country was doing her good. If it agreed with her and she wascontent, she had better stay on for the present. He should be detained inthe West longer than he had expected. There were important suits coming onagainst the railroad in which he should be needed, hearings, etc. At theclose there was an unusually passionate sentence or two about "the publicunrest and suspicion, " and the President and the newspapers. "They seem tolike the smell of filth so much that they make a supply when they can'tfind any. "

Broils of the world! The endless struggle between those who had and thosewho envied them what they had. There was another side, she supposed, and inthe past Cairy had been at some pains to explain that other side to her. Her husband must of course be prejudiced, like her father; they saw it alltoo close. However, it was a man's affair to settle, unless a woman wishedto play Conny's role and move her husband about the board. Broils! Howinfinitely far away it seemed, all the noise of the world! ... She began todress hurriedly to report at the hospital for the afternoon. As she glancedagain at her husband's letter, she saw a postscript, with some scraps ofSt. Louis gossip:--

"I hear that Bessie is to get a divorce from Falkner. I wonder if it can betrue.... I saw Steve in the street last week. From what I learn the lumberbusiness isn't flourishing.... Pity he didn't swallow his scruples and staywith us where he would be safe!"

Poor Alice--if Steve should fail now, with all those children! And then sheremembered what Alice Johnston had said to Vickers, "You see we have beenpoor so much of the time that we know what it is like. " It would take agood deal to discourage Alice and Steve. But John must keep an eye on them, and try to help Steve. John, it occurred to her then for the first time, was that kind, --the substantial sort of man that never needed help himself, on which others might lean. 

 * * * * *

So Isabelle stayed in the mountain village through the winter months. Mollycame with her governess, and both endeavored to suppress politely theirwonder that any one could imprison herself in this dreary, cold place. Theregular nurses came back to the hospital, but Isabelle, once having beendrawn in, was not released. 

"He's a hard master, " Margaret said of the doctor. "If he once gets hishand on you, he never lets go--until he is ready to. "

Apparently Renault was not ready to let go of Isabelle. Without explaininghimself to her, he kept her supplied with work, and though she saw himoften every day, they rarely talked, never seriously. He seemed to avoidafter that first night any opportunity for personal revelation. The doctorwas fond of jokes and had the manner of conducting his affairs as if theywere a game in which he took a detached and whimsical interest. If therewas sentiment in his nature, an emotional feeling towards the work he wasdoing, it was well concealed, first with drollery, and then with scientificapplication. So far as any one could observe the daily routine, there wasnothing, at least in the surgical side of the hospital, that was not coldlyscientific. As Renault had said, "We do what we can with every instrumentknown to man, every device, drug, or pathological theory. " And his mindseemed mostly engrossed with this "artisan" side of his profession, inapplying his skill and learning and directing the skill and learning ofothers. It was only in the convalescent ward that the other side showeditself, --that belief in the something spiritual, beyond the physical, to becalled upon. One of the doctors, a young Norwegian named Norden, was hisassistant in this work. And every one in the place felt that Norden wasclosest of all to the doctor. Norden in his experiments with nervousdiseases used hypnotism, suggestion, psychotherapy, --all the modern formsof supernaturalism. His attitude was ever, as he said to Isabelle, "Itmight be--who knows?"--"There is truth, some little truth in all the ages, in all the theories and beliefs. " Isabelle had a strong liking for thisuncouth Northman with his bony figure and sunken eyes that seemed alwaysburning with an unattained desire, an inexpressible belief. Norden said toher, the only way is "to recognize both soul and body in dealing with theorganism. Medicine is a Religion, a Faith, a great Solution. It ought to besupported by the state, free to all.... The old medicine is either machinework or quackery, like the blood-letting of barbers. " ... 

It was an exhilarating place to live in, Renault's hospital, --an atmosphereof intense activity, mental and physical, with a spirit of some large, unexpressed truth, a passionate faith, that raised the immediate finite andpetty task to a step in the glorious ranks of eternity. The personality ofRenault alone kept this atmosphere from becoming hectic and sentimental. Heheld this ship that he steered so steadily in the path of fact that therewas no opportunity for emotional explosions. But he himself was theundefined incarnate Faith that made the voyage of the last importance toevery one concerned. Small wonder that the doctors and nurses--theinstruments of his will--"could not be driven away"! They had caught thenote, each one of them, of that unseen power and lived always in the hopeof greater revelations to come. 

As the order of the days settled into a rhythmic routine with the passingof the weeks, Isabelle Lane desired more and more to come closer to thisman who had touched her to the quick, to search more clearly for herpersonal Solution which evaded her grasp. There were many questions shewished to have answered! But Renault had few intimate moments. He avoidedpersonalities, as if they were a useless drain upon energy. His message wasdelivered at casual moments. One day he came up behind Isabelle in theward, and nodding towards Molly, who was reading a story to one of thelittle girl patients, said:--

"So you have put daughter to some use?"

"Yes!" Isabelle exclaimed irritably. "I found her going over her dressesfor the tenth time and brought her along.... However does she get that airof condescension! Look at her over there playing the grand lady in herpretty frock for the benefit of these children. Little Snob! She didn't get_that_ from me. "

"Don't worry. Wait a day or two and you will see the small girl she isreading to hand her one between the eyes, " Renault joked. "She's on to MissMolly's patronage and airs, and she has Spanish blood in her. Look at hermouth now. Doesn't it say, 'I am something of a swell myself?"

"They say children are a comfort!" Isabelle remarked disgustedly. "They arefirst a care and then a torment. In them you see all that you dislike inyourself popping up--and much more besides. Molly thinks of nothing butclothes and parties and etiquette. She has twice the social instinct I everhad. I can see myself ten years hence being led around by her through allthe social stuff I have learned enough to avoid. "

"You can't be sure. "

"They change, but not the fundamentals. Molly is a little _mondaine_, --sheshowed it in the cradle. "

"But you don't know what is inside her besides that tendency, any more thanyou know now what is inside yourself and will come out a year hence. "

"If I don't know myself at my age, I must be an idiot!"

"No one knows the whole story until the end. Even really aged peopledevelop surprising qualities of character. It's a Christmas box--the insideof us; you can always find another package if you put your hand in deepenough and feel around. Molly's top package seems to be finery. She may diplower down. "

'So I am dipping here in Grosvenor, ' thought Isabelle, 'and I may find theunexpected!' ... This was an empty quarter of an hour before dinner andRenault was talkative. 

"Who knows?" he resumed whimsically. "You might have a good sense of humorsomewhere, Mrs. Lane, pretty well buried. "

Isabelle flushed with mortification. 

"You are witty enough, young woman. But I mean real humor, not the rattleof dry peas in the pod that goes for humor at a dinner party. Do you knowwhy I keep Sam about the place, --that fat lazy beggar who takes half anhour to fetch an armful of wood? Because he knows how to laugh. He is asplendid teacher of mirth. When I hear him laugh down in the cellar, Ialways open the door and try to get the whole of it. It shakes my stomachsympathetically. The old cuss knows it, too, which is a pity! ... Well, young mademoiselle over there is play-acting to herself; she thinks shewill be a grand lady like mamma. God knows what she will find moreinteresting before she reaches the bottom of the box. Don't worry! And didyou ever think where they catch the tricks, these kids? If you went intoit, you could trace every one down to some suggestion; it wouldn't take youlong to account for that high and mighty air in your child that you don'tfancy. If you don't want her to pick up undesirable packages, see that theyaren't handed out to her. "

"But she has had the best--"

"Yes, of course. Lord! the best! Americans are mad for the best. Whichmeans the highest priced. I've no doubt, Mrs. Lane, you have given Mollyall the disadvantages.... Did you ever sit down for five minutes and askyourself seriously what is the best, humanly speaking, for that child? Whatthings _are_ best any way? ... Do you want her to end where you are at yourage?"

Isabelle shook her head sadly:--

"No, --not that!"

"Cultivate the garden, then.... Or, to change the figure, see what ishanded out to her.... For every thought and feeling in your body, every actof your will, makes its trace upon her, --upon countless others, but uponher first because she is nearest. "

Molly, having closed her book and said good-evening to the little patient, came up to her mother. 

"It is time, I think, mamma, for me to go home to dress for dinner. " Shelooked at the little watch pinned to her dress. Renault and Isabellelaughed heartily. 

"What pebble that you tossed into the pool produced that ripple, do youthink?" the doctor quizzed, twirling Molly about by her neck, much to herdiscomfort. 

"He treats me like a child, too, " Isabelle complained to Margaret; "givesme a little lesson now and then, and then says 'Run along now and be a goodgirl. '"

"It is a long lesson, " Margaret admitted, "learning how to live, especiallywhen you begin when we did. But after you have turned the pages for awhile, somehow it counts. "

CHAPTER LXI

The first of March was still deep winter in Grosvenor, but during the nightthe southwest wind had begun to blow, coming in at Isabelle's window withthe cool freshness of anticipated spring. The day was calm and soft, withfilms of cloud floating over the hills, and the indefinable suggestion ofchange in the air, of the breaking of the frost. The southwest wind hadbrought with it from the low land the haze, as if it had come from far warmcountries about the Gulf, where the flowers were already blooming and thebirds preparing for the northward flight. It touched the earth through thethick mantle of ice and snow, and underneath in the rocky crust of frozenground there was the movement of water. The brooks on the hills began togurgle below the ice. 

Up there in the north the snow had come early in the autumn, covering aswith a warm blanket this rocky crust before the frost could strike deep. "An early spring, " Sol Short announced at dinner, a dreamy look in hiseyes, like the soft sky outside, the look of unconscious gladness thatrises in man at the thought of the coming year, the great revival oflife.... That afternoon Margaret and Isabelle drove over the snowy upland, where the deep drifts in the fields had shrivelled perceptibly, sucked bythe warm sun above and the opening earth beneath. The runners of the sleighcut into the trodden snow, and in the sheltered levels of the road thehorse's feet plashed in slush. The birches and alders lifted their barestems hardily from the retreating drifts. Soft violet lights hovered in thevalleys. 

"It is coming, Spring!" Margaret cried. 

"Remember, Mr. Short said there would be many a freeze before it reallycame to stay!"

"Yes, but it is the first call; I feel it all through me. "

The week before Ned had left the hospital, and for the first time in threeyears had sat at the table with his brother and sister. His face had lostwholly the gray look of disappointed childhood. Spring, arrested, wascoming to him at last.... 

As they climbed upward into the hills the stern aspect of winter returned, with the deep drifts of snow, the untracked road. When they topped the Passand looked down over the village and beyond to the northern mountains, thewind caught the sharp edges of the drifts and swept a snowy foam in theirfaces. But the sun was sinking into a gulf of misty azure and gold, and thebreath of awakening earth was rising to meet the sun. 

Up here it was still winter, the Past; beneath was the sign of change, thecoming of the New. And as Isabelle contemplated the broad sweep below, herheart was still, waiting for whatever should come out of the New. 

The sun fell behind the Altar, as they called the flat top of Belton'sMountain, and all about the hills played the upward radiance from itsdescending beams.... Margaret touched the loafing horse with the whip, andhe jogged down into the forest-covered road. 

"Rob Falkner lands to-day in New York, " Margaret remarked with a steadyvoice. 

Isabelle started from her revery and asked:--

"Does he mean to go back to Panama?"

"I don't believe he knows yet. The life down there is, of course, terriblylonely and unfruitful. The work is interesting. I think he would like to goon with it until he had finished his part. But there are changes; the manhe went out with has resigned. "

Margaret wanted to talk about him, apparently, for she continued:--

"He has done some very good work, --has been in charge of a difficultcut, --and he has been specially mentioned several times. Did you see theillustrated article in the last _People's_? There were sketches andphotographs of his section.... But he hasn't been well lately, had a touchof fever, and needs a rest. "

"My husband wrote that they were to be divorced--he had heard so. "

"I don't believe it, " Margaret replied evenly. "His wife hasn't been downthere.... It isn't exactly the place for a woman, at least for one whocan't stand monotony, loneliness, and hardship. She has been in Europe withher mother, this last year. "

"You know I used to know her very well years ago. She was very pretty then. Everybody liked Bessie, " Isabelle mused. 

And later she remarked:--

"Singular that _her_ marriage should be such a failure. "

"Is it singular that any given marriage should be a failure?" Margaretasked with a touch of her old irony. "It is more singular to me that anymarriage, made as they must be made to-day, should be anything but a dismalfailure. "

"But Bessie was the kind to be adored. She was pretty, and clever, andamusing, --a great talker and crazy about people. She had real socialinstinct, --the kind you read of in books, you know. She could make hercircle anywhere. She couldn't be alone five minutes, --people clusteredaround her like bees. Her life might have been a romance, you wouldsuppose, --pretty girl, poor, marries an ambitious, clever man, who arriveswith her social help, goes into politics--oh, anything you will!"

"But the real thing, " Margaret observed. 

"What do you mean?"

"Love! ... Love that understands and helps. "

"Well, I saw the most dazzling future for her when she used to give gardenparties in Torso, with only two unattached men who were possible in theplace! And at least she might have had a small home in the suburbs and anadoring husband home at five-thirty, --but she wasn't that kind.... PoorBess! I am sorry for her. "

"I suppose the reason why a man and a woman hurt instead of help each otherin marriage is never known to any one but themselves, " Margaret observeddryly, urging on the horse. "And perhaps not even to themselves!"

There was a change in Margaret, an inner ferment that displayed itself inthe haze in her clear eyes, --the look of one whose mind broods over thepast, --a heightened color, a controlled restlessness of mood. 'No, it isnot settled, ' thought Isabelle. 'Poor Margaret!' She went about her manyduties with the same silent sureness, the same poise as before. Whateverwas happening to her was according to the discipline of her nature, controlled, suppressed. 'If she would only splutter, ' Isabelle wished, 'instead of looking like a glowing sphinx!'

"Margaret!" she exclaimed in the evening, after a long silence betweenthem. "You are so young--so pretty these days!"

"You think so? Thanks!" Margaret replied, stretching her thin arms aboveher head, which was crushed against one of Mrs. Short's hard pillows. "Isuppose it is the Indian summer, the last warm glow before the end!" Sheopened her trembling lips in one of her ironical smiles. "There alwayscomes a time of ripeness to a woman before she goes over the hill into oldage. "

"Nonsense! You are younger than you were twelve years ago!"

"Yes, I am younger in a sense than I ever was. I am well and strong, and Iam in equilibrium, as I never was before.... And it's more than that. Webecome more vital if we survive the tangle of youth. We see more--we feelmore! When I hear girls talk about love, I always want to say: 'What do youknow, what _can_ you know about it! Love isn't born in a woman before sheis thirty, --she hasn't the power. She can have children, but she can't lovea man. '"

Margaret pressed her hands tensely together and murmured to herself, "Forlove is born with the soul, --and is the last thing that comes into theheart!"

Isabelle with caressing impulsiveness put her arms about the slight figure. 

"I love you, Margaret; it seems as if you were the only person I reallyloved now! It has been heaven to be with you all these weeks. You calm me, you breathe peace to me.... And I want to help you, now. "

Margaret smiled sadly and drew Isabelle's dark head to her and kissed it. 

"Nobody can help, dear.... It will come right! It must come right, I amsure. "

With the feelings that are beyond expression they held each other thus. Finally Margaret said in a low voice:--

"Rob comes day after to-morrow; he will be at the Inn. "

Isabelle rose from the couch with a sudden revulsion in her heart. Afterall, was this calm, this peace that she had admired in Margaret and longedto possess herself, this Something which she had achieved and which seemedto put her beyond and above ordinary women, nothing but the woman'ssatisfaction in love, whose lover is seeking her? She found herself almostdespising Margaret unreasonably. Some man! That created the firmament ofwomen's heaven, with its sun and its moon and its stars. Rememberedcaresses and expected joys, --the woman's bliss of yielding to her chosenmaster, --was that all!

Margaret, following Isabelle with her eyes, seemed to comprehend thissudden change in her heart. But she merely remarked:--

"He cannot stay long, --only a couple of days, I believe. "

"Tell me, " Isabelle demanded sharply, as if she had the right to know, mustknow, "what are you going to do?"

Margaret closed her eyes, and after a time of utter stillness she said in avoice beseechingly tender:--

"Dear, perhaps I do not know, yet. "

Her eyes were wet with unaccustomed tears. Stretching a hand to Isabelleand smiling again, she murmured:--

"Whatever it will be, you must trust that it will be right for me and forhim, --you must know that. "

Isabelle pressed her hand gently:--

"Forgive me. "

"And some day I will tell you. "

CHAPTER LXII

Mrs. Short peered through the dining-room window on the snow field, --adazzling white under the March sun now well above the hills, --and watchedthe two black figures tracking their way on snow-shoes towards the forest. Margaret's slight figure swept ahead with a skill and assurance that thetaller one did not show. "I guess, " mused the blacksmith's wife, "that lifeon the Isthmus of Panama don't fit a man much to distinguish himself onthose things. " Nevertheless, the man tramped laboriously behind the womanuntil the two were halted by a fence, now visible through the sunken drift. They faced each other, and were evidently discussing mirthfully how theobstacle was to be met. The man stooped to untie the shoes, his pocketsbulging with the day's luncheon; but suddenly the woman backed away andbegan to climb the fence, a difficult feat. The man lumbered after her, catching one shoe in the top rail, finally freeing himself. Then the twoblack figures were lost over the dip of the hill. The smile still lingeredon Mrs. Short's face, --the smile that two beings, man and woman, stillyoung and vital, must always bring, as though saying, 'There's spring yetin the world, and years of life and hope to come!'

 * * * * *

Behind the hill in the hollow Margaret was showing Falkner how to squat onhis shoes and coast over the crust. At the bottom of the slide the brookwas gurgling under a film of ice. The upward slope untouched by the sun, was glare ice, and they toiled. Beyond was the forest with its black treetrunks amid the clotted clumps of snowy underbrush. Falkner pushed on withawkward strength to reach Margaret, who lingered at the opening of thewood. How wonderful she was, he thought, so well, so full of life andfire, --O God! all woman! And his heart beat hard, now that what he had seenthese two years behind the curtain of his eyes was so near, --after all theweary months of heat and toil and desire! Only she was more, so muchmore--as the achieved beauty of the day is more than memory oranticipation.... 

She smiled a welcome when he reached her, and pointed away to the mistyhills. "The beauty of it!" she whispered passionately. "I adore thesehills, I worship them. I have seen them morning and night all these months. I know every color, every rock and curving line. It is like the face, of agreat austere God, this world up here, a God that may be seen. "

"You have made me feel the hills in your letters. "

"Now we see them together.... Isn't it wonderful to be here in it all, youand I, together?"

He held his arms to her. 

"Not yet, " she whispered, and sped on into the still darkness between thefir branches. He followed. 

So on, on over the buried bushes, across the trickly, thawing streams, through a thick swamp, close with alder and birch, on up the slope intowoods more largely spaced, where great oaks towered among the fir and thespruce, and tall white birches glimmered in the dusk--all still and as yetdead. And on far up the mountain slope until beneath the Altar they came toa little circle, hedged round with thick young firs, where the deep snowwas tracked with footprints of birds and foxes. Margaret leaned against theroot of a fallen birch and breathed deeply. She had come like the wind, swift and elusive, darting through the forest under the snowy branches, asif--so felt the man with his leashed desire of her--the mere physical joyof motion and air and sun and still woods were enough, and love had beenlost in the glory of the day! ... 

"Here, " she murmured with trembling lips, "at last!"

"At last!" he echoed, her eyes close to his. And as they waited a momentbefore their lips met, the woman's face softened and changed and pleadedwith him wistfully, all the sorrow of waiting and hunger, of struggle andtriumph in her eyes, and memory of joy and ecstasy that had been.... Herhead fell to his shoulder, all will gone from her body, and she lay in hisarms. 

"Love!" she murmured; "my soul's desire, at last!" ... 

 * * * * *

They had their luncheon there, in the sunny circle among the firs, andspoke of their two years' separation. 

"And I am not going back!" Falkner cried joyously. 

"You have decided already?"

"My chief has resigned, you know, --and there is a piece of work up Northhere he wants me for.... But that is not all the reason!"

Her face blanched. They had begun their journey again, and were followingthe ridge of the mountain in the light of the westering sun. They walkedslowly side by side so that they might talk. Margaret looked upquestioningly. 

"You and I have always been honest--direct with each other, " he said. 

She nodded gravely. 

"We have never slipped into things; we have looked ahead, looked it all inthe face. "

"Yes!" she assented proudly. 

"Then we will look this in the face together.... I have come back for onething--for you!"

As he drew her to him, she laid her hands on his breast and looked at himsadly. 

"The other was not enough!"

"Never!--nothing could ever be enough but to have you always. "

"Dearest, that I might forever give you all that you ever desired! All!"she cried out of the tenderest depth of a woman's heart, --the desire togive all, the best, to the man loved, the sacrificial triumph of woman, this offering of body and soul and life from the need to give, give, give!

"I have come for one thing, " he said hoarsely; "for you!"

She drew herself back from his arms unconsciously and said:--

"You must understand.... Dearest, I love you as I never loved you before. Not even when you came to me and gave me life.... I long to give youall--for always. But, dearest, for us it--cannot be. "

"I do not understand, " Falkner protested. "You think I am not free, --but Ihave come to tell you--"

"No, --listen first! And you and I will be one in this as we always havebeen one since the beginning.... When we went away together those days, weclimbed the heights--you gave me my soul--it was born in your arms. And Ihave lived since with that life. And it has grown, grown--I see so muchfarther now into the infinite that we reached out to then. And I seeclearly what has been in the past--oh, so clearly!"

"But why should that divide us now?"

"Listen! ... Now it is different. He, my husband, would be between usalways, as he was not then. I took what I needed then--took it fiercely. Inever thought of him. But now I see how all along from the beginning Iwithdrew my hand from him. Perhaps that was the reason he went sodesperately to pieces at the end. I could not have made him a strong man. But, dearest, he died utterly alone, disgraced in his own heart--alone!That is awful to think of!"

"It was his nature, " Falkner protested sternly. 

"It was his nature to be weak and small and petty.... But don't you seethat I deserted him--I took back my hand! And now I should let you takeback yours.... Yes, --I have changed, dearest. I have come to understandthat the weak must be the burden of the strong--always!"

Falkner's lean face grew hard with the lines of hunger, --repressed but notburied, --the lines of inner strife. In a dry voice he said:--

"I thought that we had settled all that once, Margaret. "

"One cannot settle such things so.... It has come to me--the light--slowly, so slowly. And it is not all clear yet. But I see a larger segment of thecircle than we could see two years ago. " ... 

Without more words they began to descend towards the village. The hillsthat compassed their view were rimmed with the green and saffron lights ofthe afterglow. Their summits were sharp edged as if drawn by a titanic handagainst a sea of glowing color. But within the forests on the slope therewas already the gloom of night. Slowly the words fell from his lips:--

"I will never believe it! Why should a man and a woman who can togethermake the world brave and noble and full of joy be parted--by anything? Asacrifice that gives nothing to any one else!"

That cry was the fruit of the man's two years' battle alone with his heart. To that point of hunger and desire he had come from the day when theyparted, when they made their great refusal.... 

Both remembered that evening, two years before, when they had sailed backto the land--to part. They remembered the Portuguese ship that was weighinganchor for a distant port. As they looked at it wistfully, he had said, "And why not?" And she had replied with shining eyes, "Because we love toomuch for that. " Then he had accepted, --they had found the heights and onthem they would remain, apart in the world of effort, always together intheir own world which they had created. Then he had understood and goneaway to his struggle. Now he could live no longer in that shadowy union: hehad come back to possess his desire. 

With her it had been different, this separation.... How much more she lovednow than then! Her love had entered into her these two years, deeper to thedepths of her being, stronger as she was stronger in body, more vital. Ithad given her strength even for the great denial to him, --and this sherealized miserably; their love had given her strength, had unfolded hersoul to herself until she had come to large new spheres of feeling, andcould see dimly others beyond. While with him it had burned away all elsebut one human, personal want. He thought to go back now to their island inthe sea, --as if one could ever go back in this life, even to the fairestpoint of the past! ... 

She laid a caressing hand on his arm. 

"Don't you see, dearest, that we could never come out again on the heightswhere we were?"

From the sombre mood of his defeat, he said bitterly:--

"So it was all wrong, --a mistake, a delusion!"

"Never!" she flashed. "Never! Not for one moment since we parted would Igive up what has been between us.... You do not understand, dearest! ... Life began for me there. If it had not been for that, this could not benow. But one journeys on from knowledge to knowledge. "

"Then why not other heights--together?"

And she whispered back very low:--

"Because we should kill it! All of it... Now that I see it would be base. We have risen above that glory, --yes, both of us! We have risen above it, divine as it was. It would be no longer divine, my dearest. I should be buta woman's body in your arms, my lover.... Now we shall rise always, always, together--each in the other!"

The lights of the village shone just below them. A sleigh went tinklingloudly along the road, with the voices of talking people in the dark night. Margaret stopped before they reached the road, and turning to him put herarms about his neck and drew him to her. 

"Don't you know that I shall be yours always? Ah, dearest, dearest!"

In the passionate tenderness of her kiss he felt the fulness of victory anddefeat. She was his, but never to be his. He kissed her burning eyes. 

CHAPTER LXIII

Supper at the Shorts' was the pleasantest time of the day. The small, plainroom, warm and light and homely, the old blacksmith's contented face as hesat at the head of his table and served the food, glancing now and thenwith a meaning look at his wife, mutely talking with her, and the twofriends in light summer dresses chatting of the day, --it was all so remotefrom the bustle of life, so simply peaceful that to Isabelle supper at theShorts' was the symbol of Grosvenor life as much as Renault's hospital. Itwas the hour when the blacksmith's ripest wisdom and best humor came to thesurface; when, having pounded existence and lassitude out of iron and woodin the little shop down the street, he relaxed the muscles of his tiredbody and looked over to his wife and found the world good. 

"Theirs is the figure of perfect marriage, " Margaret had said; "interlockedactivity, with emotional satisfaction. Mrs. Short's climax of the day isher hot supper laid before her lord.... Do you see how they talk withoutwords across the table? They know what the other is thinking always. So theShorts have found what so many millions miss, --a real marriage!"

To-night when Falkner came back with Margaret for supper, this note ofperfect domesticity was at its best. Mr. Short had gone to the cellar for abottle of cider wine in honor of the guest from Panama, and his wiferustled in black silk. She had made a marvellous cake that sat proudly onthe sideboard, looking down on the feast. The blacksmith carved the hotmeat, and in his gentle voice talked to the stranger. 

"You must have found it hard work when the snow got soft on the hills. As Ifelt the sun coming down warm, I said to myself, 'Those shoes will seem asbig as cart-wheels to him. '... You were up by Belton's? There's big timberin there still, back on the mountain, where they found it too hard to getout. You come across a great log now and then that looks like a fallengiant.... But I remember on my father's farm, twenty miles from here in theback country, when I was a boy"--

He held the carving-knife suspended above the steak, lost in the vista ofyears. These anecdotal attacks worried his wife, who feared for her hotfood; but the others encouraged him. 

--"there were trees lying on the ground in the pasture rotting, that musthave been five feet through at the butt end. I used to sit atop of them andthink how big they would have been standing up with their tops waving.... Yes, wood was cheap in those days. "... 

Isabelle, as she watched Margaret and Falkner, was puzzled. Margaret in herrose-colored tea-gown was like a glowing coal, but Falkner seemed glum andlistless. "Tired, poor man!" Mrs. Short thought, and the blacksmith hadfull scope for his memories. But gradually Falkner became interested andasked questions. As a boy he had lived in the country, and in theatmosphere of the Shorts the warm memories of those days revived, and hetalked of his own country up in the "big timber" of Michigan. Margaret, resting her head on her hands, watched his eager eyes. She knew, so well, what was in his mind below his memories. 'These good people have all this!these simple people, just the plain, elementary, ordinary things oflife, --a peaceful shelter, warmth, comfort, happiness. And we, she and I, might have this and so much more, --a thousand interests and ecstasies, butwe who are still young must live on in cheerless separation, missing allthis--and for what?'

She read it in his eyes. She knew the man-nature, how it develops whenmiddle life comes, --the desire for home, for the settled and ordered spot, the accustomed shelter. When the zest of the wandering days no longerthrills, the adventurous and experimenting impulse is spent, that is whatman, even a passionate lover, craves to find in a woman, --peace and theordered life. And she could give it to this man, who had never hadit, --companionship and comradeship as well, and make an inner spot of peacewhere the man might withdraw from the fighting world. Oh, she knew how tofit his life like a spirit! ... 

When Falkner rose to leave, Margaret slipped on a long coat, saying:--

"I will show you the way to the Inn; you would never find it alone!"

As she took his arm outside, he asked dully:--

"Which way now?"

"This is our way first, " and Margaret turned up the road away from thevillage, past the doctor's house. They walked in silence. When she pointedout Renault's hospital, Falkner looked at it indifferently. "Queer sort ofplace for a hospital. What kind of a man is he?"

"A queer sort of man, " Margaret replied. 

Beyond the hospital the road mounted the hillside, passing through darkwoods. Beneath their feet the frozen snow crunched icily. 

"Good people that blacksmith and his wife, " Falkner remarked. "That was thekind of thing I dreamed it would be, --a place, a spot, of our own, nomatter how plain and small, and some one to look across the table as thatgray-haired woman looks at the old fellow, as if she knew him to theroots.... I hope it will be some time before they get the apartment hotelin Grosvenor! ... A man has his work, " he mused. 

"Yes, the man has his work. "

"And a woman her children. "

"And the woman her children. "

"So that is what life comes to in the middle distance, --the man has hiswork and the woman her children.... But one doesn't marry for that! Thereis something else. "

Her clasp tightened on his arm, and he turned quickly and taking thefingers in his hand separated them one by one between his. In the starlighthe could see the fine line of her face from brow to pointed chin, and hecould hear her breathing. 

"This, this!" he muttered fiercely. "Your touch, so; your look, so--yourvoice in my ear--what makes it magic for me? Why not another? Anyother--why this? To go to the heart of one! Yours--which will never bemine. "

The sweep of dominating desire, the male sense of mastery and will topossess, surged up again in the man, tempting him to break the barriers shehad erected between them, to take her beyond her scruples, and carry herwith him, as the strong man of all time has carried away the woman whom hewould have for mate. 

She held her face upwards for his kiss, and as she trembled once more inthe arms of the man she had consented to, there was answered in her themystery he had propounded, --'Because of the I within me that he loves andrespects, because of that I which is mine and no other's, not evenhis, --therefore he loves me of all the world, --I am his soul!'... 

It was all snowy upland near the crest of the hill. They leaned against arock, close together, and listened to the stillness around them, his armbeneath her cloak drawing her closer, closer to him, away from herself. Inthe forgetfulness of joy she seemed mounting, floating, high up above all, the man's desire bearing her on wings away from the earth with its failureand sorrow, up to the freedom she had thirsted for, up to fulfilment.... 

Now his eyes, once more victorious, looked close into hers, and somethingwithin her spoke, --low and sweet and far away.... 

"I love you, dearest! I will be yours, as you will have me, --as we werethose other days, and more. Much more! I will be your slave, yourmistress, --to do with as you wish, to take and leave.... There can be nomarriage, none. Will you have me? Will you take me like that? To be yourthing? Will you ... And throw me away when I am used and finished for you?... I will give you all! Now! ... And when the time comes that must come, Iwill go out. "

Then, at last, the man saw! She would give all, even her own soul, if hewould take it. But first, there was something he must kill, --there in herbody within his close embrace, with her breath on his face, --something sheoffered him as a last gift to kill.... The body was but a symbol, a pieceof clothing, a rag.... So he understood, and after a long time his armsloosened about her. 

"I see, " he whispered, and as he kissed her lips, "Never that!"

The summit of the mountain loomed above them, --the Altar. Margaret as theyturned towards the village stretched her arms upwards to the Altar, --therewhere she had lain as it were naked for the sacrifice before the man sheloved. "Come!" he said gently. 

They had kissed for the last time. 

 * * * * *

As they approached the Inn at the farther end of the village, Falkner wassaying in reply to her question:--

"Yes, after I have seen something of Mildred, I shall go to Washington tojoin the chief. He will want me to live up in the country at the works. Ishall like that.... The dam will take three years at least, I suppose. Itmust be like the work of the ancient Egyptians, for all time and colossal. I wish the work might last out my day!"

The woman's heart tightened. Already he had swung, as she willed, to theone steadfast star in his firmament, --work, accomplishment, --accepting thedestiny she had willed, to struggle upwards apart from her to that highaltar where they both had stood this night.... 

When Margaret entered the house, Isabelle's light was still burning and herdoor was open. She paused as she passed to her room, her coat flung backrevealing the soft rose color beneath, and in her white face her eyes shonesoftly. 

"Rob leaves to-morrow morning by the early train, " she remarked. 

"So soon!"

"Yes, --for the West. "

And then Isabelle knew, as Margaret had promised. 

CHAPTER LXIV

Dr. Renault's private office was a large, square room with a north windowthat gave a broad view of the pointed Albany mountains. Along the wallswere rows of unpainted wooden shelves on which were stacked books andpamphlets. One small piece of bronze on the shelf above the fireplace--acopy of the seated Mercury in the Naples museum--was the sole ornament inthe room. A fire was dying on the hearth this gray March afternoon, andflashes of light from a breaking log revealed the faces of Renault andIsabelle, standing on opposite sides of his work table. They had stood likethis a long time while the gray day came to an end outside and the treeslashed by the north wind bent and groaned. Isabelle was passing the office, after dinner, on some errand, and the doctor had called her. Accident hadled to this long talk, the longest and the deepest she had had withRenault. One thing had touched another until she had bared to him herheart, had laid before his searching gaze the story of her restless, futilelife. And the words that he had spoken had dropped like hot metal upon herwounds and burned until her hands trembled as they leaned upon his desk.... 

"The discipline of life!" he had said. The phrase was hateful to her. Itstirred within her all the antagonism of her generation to the creed of herpeople, to the Puritan ideal, cold, narrow, repressive. And yet Renault wasfar from being a Puritan. But he, too, believed in the "discipline oflife. " And again when she had confessed her ambitions for "a broad life, ""for experience, " he had said: "Egotism is the pestilence of our day, --thesort of base intellectual egotism that seeks to taste for the sake oftasting. Egotism is rampant. And worst of all it has corrupted the women, in whom should lie nature's great conservative element. So our body socialis rotten with intellectual egotism. Yes, I mean just what you have pridedyourself on, --Culture, Education, Individuality, Cleverness, --'leading yourown lives, ' Refinement, Experience, Development, call it what you will, --itis the same, the inturning of the spirit to cherish self. Not one of allyou women has a tenth of the experience my mother had, who, after bringingup her family of eight, at fifty-seven went to the town school to learnLatin, because before she had not had the time. "... To some defence of herideal by Isabelle, he retorted with fine scorn:--

"Oh, I know the pretty impression our American women make in the eyes ofvisiting foreigners, --so 'clever, ' so 'fascinating, ' so 'original, ' so'independent, ' and such 'charm'! Those are the words, aren't they? Whiletheir dull husbands are 'money-getters. ' They at least are doers, nottalkers! ... 

"Do you know what you are, women like you, who have money and freedom to'live your own lives'? You are sexless; you haven't nature's great apologyfor the animal, --desire. Such women sin, when they sin, with their minds. Great God! I had rather those broad-hipped Italian peasant women ofCalabria, with solid red-brown flesh, bred bastards for the country thanhave these thin, anaemic, nervous, sexless creatures, with their 'souls'and their 'charm, ' marry and become mothers! What have you done to therace? The race of blond giants from the forests of the north? Watch theavenue in New York!"

Again, --"So what have you made of marriage, 'leading your own lives'? Youmake marriage a sort of intelligent and intellectual prostitution--and youdevelop divorce. The best among you--those who will not marry unless theman can arouse their 'best selves'--will not bear children even then. Andyou think you have the right to choose again when your so-called souls haveplayed you false the first time.... And man, what of him? You leave him tohis two gross temptations, --Power and Lust. Man is given you to protect, and you drive him into the market-place, where he fights for your ease, andthen relaxes in the refined sensualities you offer him as the reward forhis toil. With the fall of man into the beast's trough must come thedegradation of women. They cannot travel apart; they must pull together. What have _you_ done for your husband?" He turned sharply on Isabelle. "Where is he now? where has he been all these years? What is he doing thishour? Have you nursed his spirit, sharpened his sword? ... I am notspeaking of the dumb ones far down in the mass, nor of the humdrumphilistines that still make homes, have traces of the nest-instinct left;but of you, _you_, --the developed intelligences who flatter yourselves thatyou lead because you are free to do as you like. By your minds you arebetrayed!"

Before the blast of his scorching words Isabelle saw her ambitions shrivelinto petty nothings, --all the desires from her first married days to find asuitable expression of her individuality, her wish to escape Torso, hercontempt for St. Louis, her admiration for Cornelia Woodyard, her seekingfor "interesting" people and a cultivated and charming background forherself, and last of all her dissatisfaction in her marriage because itfailed to evoke in her the passion she desired. It was a petty story, shefelt, --ashamed before Renault's irony. 

He knew her life, more than she had told him, much more. He knew _her_. Heread below the surface and had known her from the first hour they had met. It was all true, --she had wanted many things that now she saw were futile. She had accepted her marriage as failure--almost with relief, as an excusefor her restlessness. Yes, she had made mistakes; what was worse, was amistake herself! Crushed with this sense of futility, of failure, shecried:--

"But we are caught in the stream when we are young and eager. The worldseems so big and rich if you but reach out your hand to take. "

"And from its feast you took--what?"

She was silent, self-convicted; for she had taken chaff! ... Nevertheless, it was not dead within her--the self. It cried out under Renault's pitilessscorn for satisfaction, for life. The rebellious surge of desire stillsuffocated her at times. There was beauty, the loveliness of the earth, themagic wonder of music and art, --all the clamor of emotion for an expressionof self. And love? Ah, that was dead for her. But the life within, theself, still hungered for possession at times more fiercely than ever. Whyshould it be killed at her age? Why were they not good, these hungrydesires, this fierce self that beat in her blood for recognition? Theconquering, achieving SELF! That was the spirit of her race, to see andtake that which was good in their eyes, to feed the SELF with all that theworld contained of emotions, ideas, experience; to be big, and strong, andrich, --to have Power! That was what life had meant for her ancestors eversince the blond race emerged from their forests to conquer. All else wasdeath to the self, was merely sentimental deception, a playing atresignation.... 

As if he traced her fast thoughts, Renault said:--

"A house divided against itself--"

"But even if I have failed--"

"Failed because you did not look deep enough within!"

Renault's voice insensibly softened from his tone of harsh invective as headded:--

"And now you know what I meant when I said that a neurasthenic world neededa new religion!"

So he had remembered her, --knew her all the time!

"But you can't get it because you need it--"

"Yes, because you feel the need! ... Not the old religion of abnegation, the impossible myths that come to us out of the pessimistic East, createdfor a relief, a soporific, a means of evasion, --I do not mean that asreligion. But another faith, which abides in each one of us, if we look forit. We rise with it in the morning. It is a faith in life apart from ourown personal fate.... Because we live on the surface, we despair, we getsick. Look below into the sustaining depths beyond desire, beyond self, tothe depths, --and you will find it. It will uplift you.... When you wake inthe morning, there will come to you some mysterious power that was notthere before, some belief, some hope, some faith. Grasp it! ... When theclouds lift, the physical clouds and the mental clouds, then appears theVision and the knowledge. They are the truth from the depths within, --thevoice of the spirit that lives always. And by that voice man himself livesor dies, as he wills, --by the voice of the spirit within. "

So as the drear day of the dying winter drew to a close, as the ashespowdered on the hearth and the face of Renault became obscure in thetwilight, the dim outlines of a great meaning rose before her, reconcilingall.... The Vision that abides within apart from the teasing phantasmagoriaof sense, the Vision that comes, now dim, now vivid, as the flash of whitelight in the storm, the Vision towards which mankind blindly reaches, theVision by which he may learn to live and endure all!

And this Vision was all that really mattered, --to see it, to follow whereit pointed the way!

... "The waste in life, the wrong steps, the futile years!" she murmured. 

"Rather the cost, the infinite cost of human souls--and their infinitevalue once born, " Renault corrected. "Do not distress yourself about whatto do, the claims of this or that. The thing to do will always be clear, once you trust yourself, seek wholly the Vision. And as for beauty andsatisfaction and significance, --it is infinite in every moment of everylife--when the eyes are once open to see!"

There was the sound of footsteps outside, and Isabelle moved to the door. 

"So, " Renault concluded, putting his hands on her shoulders, "it is not theEnd but the Beginning. And always so, --a mysterious journey, this life, with countless beginnings.... We go out into the night. But the lightcomes--when we forget to see ourselves. "

The wind raged in the trees outside, sweeping across the earth, tearing theforest, cleansing and breaking its repose, preparing for the renewal tocome. Like a mighty voice it shouted to man; like the whirlwind it shookhis earth.... For the first time since Vickers lay dead in the dawn of theJune morning Isabelle could bear to look at the past, --to accept it calmlyas part of herself out of which she had lived, in recognition of thatbeginning within. 

CHAPTER LXV

"They seem to be in such a pother, out in the world, " Isabelle remarked toMargaret, as she turned over the leaves of her husband's letter. "ThePresident is calling names, and a lot of good people are calling namesback. And neither side seems to like being called names. John doesn't likeit, and he calls names. And they sulk and won't play marbles. It all soundslike childish squabbling. "

Margaret, who was unusually absent-minded this evening, sighed:--

"So many desires of men, always struggling at cross-purposes! I haven'tread the papers for months! They don't seem real up here, somehow. What'shappening?"

"I haven't opened my papers, either. Look there!" Isabelle pointed to apile of unwrapped newspapers in the corner. "But I must go through them andsee what John is grumbling about. It isn't like John to grumble atanything. " Then she read from her husband's letter: "The President in hisbesotted vanity and colossal ignorance has succeeded in creating troublethat twenty Presidents won't be able to settle. The evils which he may havecorrected are nothing to those he has brought upon innocent people.... Sofar as our road is concerned, this prejudiced and partisan investigation, instigated by the newspapers and notoriety seekers, will do no greatharm.... I suppose you have seen the garbled press account of mycross-examination, --don't let it disturb you. "... 

Isabelle looked up. 

"I wonder what he means by that! 'My cross-examination'? It must besomething rather out of the ordinary to stir John to suchexpression, --'Besotted vanity and colossal ignorance. ' Whew!"

After Margaret left, Isabelle began abstractedly to strip the wrappers fromthe newspapers, glancing at the thickest headlines:--

BANK FAILURE--SUICIDE OF BANK PRESIDENT--SENSATIONAL DIVORCE, etc. 

Here it was at last:--

THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC ON THE GRILL!! INVESTIGATION OF THE GREATRAILROAD'S COAL BUSINESS

Isabelle scanned the newspaper column indifferently. As Margaret had said, the squabbles of the great, conglomerate, writhing business world seemedremote indeed. They had never been actual to her, though she was thedaughter of a merchant. In the Colonel's house, as in most American homesof the well-to-do, the newspaper was regarded as a necessary evil, largelycomposed of lies and garbled rumors. It was taken for granted that almosteverything to be seen in print was vitiated by sensational falsehood, andso far as "business"--mystic word!--was concerned, all "news" was purefabrication. This sceptical attitude had been intensified by John, whoregarded any criticism of the actions of capital as dictated by envy, as"unpatriotic, " aimed at the efforts of the most energetic and respectableelement in the community; moreover, "socialistic, " that is, subversive ofthe established order, etc. According to John the ablest men would always"get on top, " no matter what laws were made. And getting on top meant thatthey would do what they wished with their own, i. E. Capital. Thus withoutthinking about it Isabelle had always assumed that men in general wereenvious of their betters. Sometimes, to be sure, she had suspected thatthis simple theory might be incomplete, that her husband and his friendsmight be "narrow. " Some people whose opinion she respected even approved ofthe President's policy in seeking to curb the activities of capital. Butshe had slight interest in the vexed question, and skipped all referencesto industrial turmoil in her reading. 

So to-night her eyes slipped carelessly down the column, which was notintelligible without previous accounts, and she continued to rip thewrappers from newspapers, letting the stiff parcels of paper drop to thefloor. She was thinking of what Renault had said, bits of his phrasesconstantly floating through her mind. If he had only been more precise! Shewanted to know _what_ to do, --here, now. He had said: "Wait! It will all beclear. It makes little difference what it is. You will find the path. " Withher eager temperament that was all baffling. Margaret had found herpath, --had seen her Vision, and it had brought to her peace. Her restless, bitter nature had been wonderfully changed into something exquisitely calmand poised, so that her very presence, silent in the room, could befelt.... 

Isabelle's eyes caught the headline in the paper she was opening:--

OFFICIALS OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC BEFORE THE FEDERAL GRAND JURY

JOHN S. LANE, THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROAD, INDICTED

Isabelle's mind suddenly woke to the present, and she began to readbreathlessly: "As a result of the recent investigations by the InterstateCommerce Commission of the relation between the Atlantic and Pacific andcertain coal properties, officials of that system have been examined by aspecial Grand Jury, and it is rumored, " etc. Isabelle glanced at the dateof the paper. It was a month old! Even now, perhaps, her husband was ontrial or had already been tried for illegal acts in the conduct of hisbusiness, and she knew nothing about it! Another paper had the item: "Thistime the district attorney under direction from Washington will not becontent to convict a few rate clerks or other underlings. The indictmentfound against one of the vice-presidents of this great corporation that hasso successfully and impudently defied the law will create a profoundimpression upon the whole country. It is a warning to the corporationcriminals that the President and his advisers are not to be frightened bycalamity-howlers, and will steadfastly pursue their policy of going higherup in their effort to bring the real offenders before the courts. Thecoming trial before federal Judge Barstow will be followed with intenseinterest, " etc. , etc. 

Isabelle rapidly uncovered the remaining newspapers, arranging them in theorder of dates, and then glanced through every column in search of newsabout the trial, even to the editorial comments on the action of the GrandJury. The earlier papers that had the account of the investigation by theCommission had been destroyed unread, but she inferred from what she sawthat the affair rose from the complaint of independent mine-owners inMissouri and Indiana that they were discriminated against by the railroad. The federal authorities were trying to establish the fact of conspiracy onthe part of the Atlantic and Pacific to control the coal business along itslines. There were hints of an "inside ring, " whose operations tended todefraud both stockholders and public.... 

As she read the wordy columns of report and suspicion, there suddenly shotinto Isabelle's mind a memory of a Sunday afternoon in Torso when she andJohn had ridden by Mr. Freke's mines and John had said in reply to herquestion, "Mr. Freke and I do business together. " Mr. Freke was thepresident of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, --a name that occurred oftenin the newspaper report, the name which had been spread across the blacksheds she had seen that Sunday afternoon. Now she remembered, also, thatshe had had to sign certain papers for transfer of stock when John had soldsomething to put the money--into coal. And last of all she remembered atthe very beginning of her life in Torso the face of that man in herhusband's office and how he had begged for cars, and his cry, "My God! Ishall go bankrupt!" Out of it all--the newspaper paragraphs, the legalterms, the editorial innuendoes, the memories--there was shaped somethinglike a coherent picture of what this dispute really meant, and herhusband's concern in it. 

It was now midnight. Isabelle's mind was stung to keen apprehension. Shedid not know whether John was guilty of what the government was seeking toprove him guilty. She could not judge whether the government was justifiedin bringing suit against the railroad and its officials. There wasdoubtless the other side, John's side. Perhaps it was a technical crime, aformal slip, as she had been told it was in other cases where thegovernment had prosecuted railroads. That would come out clearly at thetrial, of course. But the fact that stared her in the face was that herhusband was to be _tried_--perhaps was on trial this very day--and she didnot even know it! She reached for the papers again and searched for thedate of the trial of the coal cases in the federal court. It was to openthe nineteenth of March--it was now the twenty-second! And the last paperto reach her was the issue of the eighteenth. The trial had already begun. 

Isabelle paced the narrow breadth of her chamber. Her husband was on trial, and he had not written her. His last letters, which she had destroyed, hadbetrayed signs of irritation, disturbance.... Renault's charge, "The curseof our day is egotism, " rang in her ears. She had been so much concernedover her own peace of mind, her own soul, that she had had no room for anyperception--even for the man with whom she had lived side by side for tenyears! Love or not, satisfaction or not in marriage, it must mean somethingto live for ten years of life with another human being, eat bread with him, sleep under the same roof with him, bear a child to him.... And there inher silent room Isabelle began to see that there was something in marriageother than emotional satisfaction, other than conventional cohabitation. "Men are given to you women to protect--the best in them!" "You live offtheir strength, --what do you give them? Sensuality or spirit?" Her husbandwas a stranger; she had given him nothing but one child. 

Isabelle opened her trunks and began to pack. There was a train south fromWhite River at eight-thirty, which connected with the New York express. Molly could follow later with the governess.... She flung the thingsloosely into the trunks, her mind filled with but one idea. She must get toSt. Louis as soon as possible. 'John--my husband--is being tried out therefor dishonest conduct in his business, and we are so far apart that hedoesn't even mention it in his letters!'

At last, the packing over, she crouched by the embers and tried to warm hernumb hands. This burst of decided will which had made her swiftly preparefor the journey gave out for the moment.... What should she do out there, after all? She would merely be in the way and annoy John. And with astrength that startled her came the answer, 'After all, we are man andwife; he is my husband, and he is in trouble!'

It would not be possible to see Renault before she left. Well, he hadspoken his message to her, having chosen his own time. And already hisprophecy was coming about. The thing to do was plain. The Vision was there, and the voice had spoken out of the depths. She was extraordinarily calm, as if raised above doubt, the confusing calls of personal consideration. There might be disgrace to come for her husband. There was the undoubtedmiserable failure of her marriage, --the strong possibility of her husband'simpassive coldness at her futile flight to his side, at this hour. Butthere was no Fear! ... And serenely she dropped into sleep. 

CHAPTER LXVI

Margaret and the children drove down to White River with her the nextmorning. Just as Margaret had previously opposed her restless desire toleave Grosvenor, with gentle suggestions and quiet persuasion, so this timeshe accepted her going as inevitable. 

"But you may come back; I wish it might be!" was all she said, not veryhopefully. 

Isabelle shook her head. She made no plans, but she felt that no matterwhat the outcome of the trial might be it was hardly probable that her pathwould lead back to this retreat. As she got into the sleigh she looked upthe hillside to the hospital, its many windows glistening in the risingsun, its severe outlines sharp against the snowy field, and her eyes rovedon to the dusky firs in the valley, up to the purple hilltop of the Altar, on to the distant peaks rising behind, with crests already bare. Her eyeswere misty as she drove through the familiar village street, past theblacksmith's shop, where Sol Short waved a second good-by with a glowingbar of steel caught from the forge, on towards the Pass and thedescent, --it was a haven of peace, this hillside village! Within thatcircle of snowy hills, in the silent beauty of the Northern winter, she hadlived more, lived deeper, than anywhere else in the world. But she shouldnot come back, --there would be no place for that. Grosvenor had given itsbenediction, --the hills and the woods, the snowy expanses and frozenbrooks, the sunsets and starlit firmament, --the blacksmith's simple contentand Renault's beacon lights, Margaret's peace, --all had done their work inher. As the lumbering sleigh dragged over the Pass, she gazed back to fixits image in her mind forever. The fresh March wind blew in her face, chillbut full of distant promise, as if in its sweep from the north it had heardthe tidings of spring, the stirrings deep below snow and frost. And the skyshimmered cloudless from horizon to horizon, a soft blue.... 

The agitations before and the struggle to come were interspaced by thislofty place of Peace--wherein she had found herself!

 * * * * *

The frost-covered train from the north drew up at the platform in a cloudof steam. The fireman, a lad of eighteen, with a curl waving from under hiscap, was leaning far out of the cab, smoking a cigarette and looking up atthe snowy mountains just visible from White River. He was careless, --alive, and content this fine morning, --his grimy arms bare on the sill of the cabwindow, the broad earth and its hills spread before him. As the engine shotpast, he looked down at Isabelle, curiously, and then up to the mountainsagain, as if his life were complete enough. A careless figure of the humanroutine of the world, endlessly moving, changing, energizing, functioningin its destined orbit! And all lives were tied together in the fine mesh ofcircumstance, --one destiny running into another as the steel band ofrailroad ran on and on into distant places, just as the lad in the enginecab was somehow concerned with the whole human system that ended, perchance, in the courtroom at St. Louis.... 

Isabelle took Margaret in her arms and holding her close, as if she wouldseize her very spirit, kissed her. 

"Tell the doctor, " she said, "that I am beginning to understand--a little. "

PART SEVEN

CHAPTER LXVII

What is marriage? At least in these United States where men once dreamedthey would create a new society of ideal form based on that poeticillusion, "All men"--presumably women, too!--"are born free and equal!"

Yes, what has marriage been, --first among the pioneers pushing their way tonew land through the forest, their women at their sides, or in the ox-cartbehind them with the implements of conquest, --pushing out together into thewide wilderness, there to fight side by side, to tame Nature and win fromher a small circle of economic order for their support? Together these twocut the trees, build the cabin, clear the land and sow it, thus makingshelter and food. And then the Woman draws apart to bring _her_ increment, the children, to fight with them, to follow in their steps. In that warfareagainst stubborn Nature and Chaos, against the Brute, against the Enemy inwhatever form, the Man and the Woman are free and equal, --they standtogether and win or lose together, live or die in the life-long battle. Andthe end? If they triumph in this primitive struggle for existence, theyhave won a few acres of cleared land for the harvest, a habitation, andfood, and children who will take up from their hands the warfare for life, to win further concessions from Nature, a wider circle of order from chaos. This is the marriage type of the pioneer, --a primitive, body-wrackingstruggle of two against all, a perfect type, elemental but whole, --and thisremains the large pattern of marriage to-day wherever sound. Two bodies, two souls are united for the life struggle to wring order out ofchaos, --physical and spiritual. 

Generations are born and die. The circles grow wider, more diversified, overlap, intersect. But the type remains of that primitive wildernessstruggle of the family. Then comes to this breeding society the Crisis. There came to us the great War, --the conflict of ideals. Now Man leavesbehind in the home the Woman and her children, and goes forth alone tofight for the unseen, --the Idea that is in him, that is stronger than womanor child, greater than life itself. Giving over the selfish struggle withthe Brute, he battles against articulate voices. And the Woman is left tokeep warm the forsaken nest, to nurse the brood there, to wait and want, perchance to follow after her man to the battle-field and pick out her deadand bear it back to burial. She, too, has her part in the struggle; notmerely the patient, economic part, but the cherishing and the shaping ofman's impulse, --the stuff of his soul that sends him into the battle-field. Alone she cannot fight; her Man is her weapon. He makes to prevail thoseIdeals which she has given him with her embraces. This also is the perfecttype of Marriage, --comradeship, togethership, --and yet larger than beforebecause the two share sacrifice and sorrow and truth, --things of thespirit. Together they wage War for others. 

And there follows a third condition of Marriage. The wilderness reduced, society organized, wars fought, there is the time of peace. Now Man, freeto choose his task, goes down into the market-place to sell his force, andhere he fights with new weapons a harder fight; while his Woman waitsbehind the firing line to care for him, --to equip him and to hoard hispelf. On the strength and wisdom of her commissariatship the fate of thisbattle in good part depends. Of such a nature was Colonel Price's marriage. "He made the money, I saved it, " Harmony Price proudly repeated in theafter-time. "We lived our lives together, your mother and I, " her husbandsaid to their daughter. It was _his_ force that won the dollars, made theeconomic position, and _her_ thrift and willingness to forego present easethat created future plenty. Living thus together for an economic end, saving the surplus of their energies, they were prosperous--and they werehappy. The generation of money-earners after the War, when the countryalready largely reclaimed began to bear fruit abundantly, were happy, if inno greatly idealistic manner, yet peacefully, contentedly happy, andusefully preparing the way for the upward step of humanity to a littlenearer realization of that poetic illusion, --the brotherhood of man. 

In all these three stages of the marriage state, the union of Man and Womanis based on effort in common, together; not on sentiment, not on emotion, not on passion, not on individual gratification of sense or soul. The twoare partners in living, and the fruit of their bodies is but another proofof partnership.... 

And now emerges another economic condition, the inexorable successor of theprevious one, and another kind of Marriage. Society is complexly organized, minutely interrelated; great power here and great weakness there, vastaccumulations of surplus energies, hoarded goods, many possessions, --oh, along gamut up and down the human scale! And the CHANCE, the great gamble, always dangles before Man's eyes; not the hope of a hard-won existence forwoman and children, not a few acres of cleared wilderness, but a dream ofthe Aladdin lamp of human desires, --excitements, emotions, ecstasies, --allthe world of the mind and the body. So Woman, no longer the Pioneer, nolonger the defender of the house, no longer the economist, blossoms--aswhat? The Spender! She is the fine flower of the modern game, of thebarbaric gamble. At last she is Queen and will rule. The Man has the money, and the Woman has--herself, her body and her charm. She traffics with manfor what he will give, and she pays with her soul.... To her the man comesfrom the market-place soiled and worn, and lays at her feet his gain, andin return she gives him of her wit, of her handsome person, gowned andjewelled, of her beauty, of her body itself. She is Queen! She amuses herlord, she beguiles him, she whets his appetite and pushes him forth to themorrow's fight, to bring back to her more pelf, to make her greater yet. She sits idle in her cabin-palace, attended by servants, or goes forth onher errands to show herself before the world as her man's Queen. So long asshe may but please this lord of hers, so long as she may hold him by hermind or her body, she will be Queen. She has found something softer thanlabor with her hands, easier than the pains of childbirth, --she has foundthe secret of rule, --mastery over her former master, the slave ruling thelord. Like the last wife of the barbarian king she is heaped with jewelsand served with fine wines and foods and lives in the palace, --thefavorite. 

And Woman, now the mistress rather than the wife, has longings for Love. She listens to her heart, and it whispers strange fancies. "I cannot lovethis man whom I have married, though he feeds me and gives me of his best. My soul will have none of him, --I will not consent to live with him andbear children for him and thus be a slave. Lo, am I not a Queen, to giveand take back, to swear and then swear again? I will divorce this man whocan no longer thrill me, and I will take another dearer to my heart, --andthus I shall be nobler than I was. I shall be a person with a soul of myown. To have me man must win me not once, but daily. For marriage withoutthe love of my soul is beastly. " So she cheats herself with fine phrasesand shirks. Small comradeship here! Marriage to this woman is a state ofpersonal gratification, the best bargain she can make with man.... 

To this state has come the honorable condition of marriage in a countrywhere "men"--and surely women!--"are born free and equal. " The flower ofsuccessful womanhood--those who have bargained shrewdly--are to be foundoverfed, overdressed, sensualized, in great hotels, on mammoth steamers andluxurious trains, rushing hither and thither on idle errands. They havelost their prime function: they will not or they cannot get children. Theyare free! As never women were before. And these wives are the custodians ofmen, not merely of their purses but of their souls. They whisper to themthe Ideals of their hearts: "Come bring me money, and I will kiss you. Makeme a name before the world, and I will noise it abroad. Build me a housemore splendid than other houses, set me above my sisters, and I willreflect honor on you among men for the clothes I wear and the excellentshape of my figure. "

And thus, unwittingly, Woman becomes again in the revolution of the ageswhat she was at first, the female creature, the possession, the thing forlust and for amusement, --the cherished slave. For the death of woman's soulfollows when she pays with her body, --a simple, immutable law.... Woman inAmerica, splendidly free and Queen! What have you done with the men whowere given into your charge? Clever, beautiful, brilliant, --our mostshining prize, --but what have you done for the souls of the men given intoyour keeping? ... The answer roars up from the city streets, --the mostmaterial age and the most material men and the least lovely civilization onGod's earth. No longer the fighting companion at man's side, but reachingout for yourselves, after your own desires, you have become the slave ofthe Brute as you were before. And a neurotic slave. For when Woman is nolonger comrade of man in the struggle, she is either Nothing or a--but blotthe word!

 * * * * *

Perfect justice, a complete picture of society in a civilization of eightymillions, requires many shades. The darker shades are true only of therotting refuse, the scum of the whole. Among the married millions most are, fortunately, still struggling through the earlier types from the pioneer tothe economist. But as the water runs there lies the sea beyond. From theprairie village to the city tenement, the American woman sees in marriagethe fulfilment of her heart's desire, --to be Queen, to rule and not work. Thus for emancipated Woman. 

And the poor creature Man, who fights for his Queen? A trained energy, avessel of careless passion, a blind doer, dreaming great truths and seeinglittle ends, --Man is still abroad ranging his forest, his hunting blood up, "playing the game. " There are moments when his sleep is troubled withfeverish dreams in which he hears murmurs, --"The body is more thanraiment, " and "The soul is more than the body"; "There are otherhunting-grounds, another warfare. " But roused from these idle fancies hesallies forth from his cabin-palace, or his hotel apartment, or hissteam-heated and childless flat into the old fray, to kill his meat andbring it home.... We chatter of the curse of Castle Garden, unmindful thatin the dumb animal hordes, who labor and breed children, lies the future. For Theirs Will Be The Land, when the blond hunter of the market and hispampered female are swept into the dust heap. 

CHAPTER LXVIII

In the vast eighteen-story, thousand-room New York hotel where IsabelleLane stayed for the night on her way west, there was the usual constantbustle of arriving and departing people. The heat, the crowd, the luxury ofthis cliff-city with its throngs of much-dressed men and women overwhelmedIsabelle with a sense of startling unreality. It was not simply that shehad been removed from the noise of city life for a number of months, secluded in the quiet of open spaces, and that the latest novelty in NewYork hotels contrasted sharply with primitive Grosvenor. But she foundherself examining the scene, from the moment she entered the crowded foyerwith its stucco-marble columns and bronze railings, its heavy hangings andwarm atmosphere, with eyes that seemed to observe what was there before herfor the first time. She looked at the thick rugs, the uniformed servants, the line of pale, sleek young men in the office enclosure, the swarming"guests" (according to the euphemistic slang of American hotels!), --allthese women in evening gowns, much jewelled, on their way to dinner, withtheir attendant males; and she asked herself if it were the same world thatshe had always known. 

The little bronze doors in the bank of elevators opened and shut, taking inand disgorging men and women, to shoot upwards to the tiers of partitionedprivacy above or to hurry forth on their errands. Waiting for the hotelmaid to fetch her key, Isabelle felt like a soul resurrected from a grave, come back to experience what had once been its theatre of activity and joy. She felt the tense hum of life in the activity of the clerks behind thedesk, the servants hurrying on their errands, the coming and going of thehorde of people, among whom watchful house detectives moved about silently. She knew that across the narrow street was another even larger cliff-city, where the same picture of life was repeating itself, and around the cornerthere were four or five more, and farther away dozens almost exactly likethis one, --all crowded, humming with people, with the same heavy atmosphereof human beings hived together in hot air, men and women dressed likethese, feeding like these in great halls, spending lavishly for comfort, pleasure, and repose! ... 

This mammoth caravansary was a symbol of the broad, riotously richcountry, --a spiritual and material symbol, representing its thoughts, itsideals, its art, its beauty, its joy. Into these metropolitan cliff-citiesflowed the stream of dominant, successful lives of the nation, seeking tofind satisfaction for their efforts, their rightful triumph. Once Isabellehad had the child's pleasure in the hotel pageant. Later it had been anaccepted convenience. Now she sat there looking on as from a greatdistance, and she said over and over wonderingly: "Can this be life? No, this is not life, --'tis not real!"

At the news-stand near by a group of men and women were loitering, the menbuying theatre tickets, the women turning over the leaves of magazines, scanning lazily the titles of novels. The magazines were stacked in rows, each with a gaudy cover, --"artistic" or designed merely to capture the eyeby a blaze of color. One of the women turned the leaves of several novels, idly, with a kind of fat ennui, as if loath to be tempted even by mentaldissipation. Then noting a title that had somehow lodged itself withfavorable associations in her brain, she said to the girl behind thecounter, "You may send this up to my room. "

So the work of imagination, the picture of life, the soul of the poetcreator, was slipped from the pile to be sent upwards along with the otherpurchases of the day, --clothes and jewellery and candy, --what the woman haddesired that day. This group moved on and another took its place. The booksand the magazines disappeared like the theatre tickets and the cigars andcigarettes at the neighboring stand, --feeding the maw of the multitude, which sought to tickle different groups of brain cells. Gay little books, saucy little books, cheap little books, pleasant little books, --all makingtheir bid to certain cells in the gray matter of these sated human beings!A literature composed chiefly by women for women, --tons of wood pulp, milesof linen covers, rivers of ink, --all to feed the prevailing taste, like theribbons, the jewels, the candy, the theatre tickets! A great age, as Mr. Gossom, swelling with pride, would have said, and a great people, that hasstandardized its pleasures and has them marketed in convenient packages forall tastes! An age of women's ideals, a literature by women for women! ... Isabelle bought a copy of Mr. Gossom's patriotic magazine for the People, and turned its fresh pages with a curiosity to see what it was like, andwho was writing now. The sentimental novel by the popular English novelistthat she had looked at when it first appeared came to its conclusion inthis number. And it not having met with the expected popular approval, forall its sentiment, Mr. Gossom had abandoned the idyllic in favor of astartling series of articles on "Our National Crimes, " plentifully andpersonally illustrated. Mr. Gossom would have preferred to prolong thesentimental note, --"pleasant reading, " as he called it; personally he didnot approve of hanging up the nation's wash in the front yard, for hehimself was an investor in corporations. But what could he do? It was hisbusiness to give the People what the People wanted. And just now theywanted to be shocked and outraged by revelations of business perfidy. Another six months, perhaps, when the public was tired of contemplatingrascality, the editor would find something sweet, full of country charm andsuburban peace, to feed them.... On the title-page there were the old namesand some new ones, but the same grist, --a "homely" story of "real life"among the tenements, a "humorous" story of the new school, an article on amarvellous invention to set the public on the gape, etc.... Fosdick had anarticle of a serious nature, on Trades Unions and Socialism. 'So Dickie, having ceased to roll about the world, ' thought Isabelle, 'has begun towrite about it. ' She turned down the page at his article and looked intothe advertising section. That was where the _People's_ excelled, --in itsthick advertising section. Between the automobiles and the pianolas wereinserted some pages of personal puff, photographs of the comingcontributors, and an account of their deeds, --the menus prepared for thecoming months. Isabelle looked at the faces of the contributors, among whomwas Dick's face, very smooth and serious. As a whole the photographs mightbe those of any Modern Order of Redmen, consciously posed before the cameraof Fame. But they gave that personal touch so necessary to please thedemocratic taste. Thus from Aeschylus to Mr. Gossom's "literature. " ... Itseemed no more real, no more a part of what life is in its essence, thanthe hotel and the sleek people thronging it. 

 * * * * *

When Isabelle entered the dining room, the head waiter placed her in asheltered nook behind one of the stucco pillars, not far from the stringedinstruments concealed in a little Gothic choir loft over the entrance. There were flowers on the tables and multitudinous electric candles in pinksilk shades. The open-timbered ceiling had been decorated by an artist ofsome fame, who had sought in vain to give to this rich feeding place of theherd the grace of an Italian palace. Two long mural paintings adorned theend walls, and six highly colored tapestries were hung at equal spaceslaterally. In spite of the large proportions of the room, it wasinsufferably hot and heavy with the odors of wilting flowers and perspiringhumanity, somewhat perfumed, and of foods and wines. The early diners wereleaving for the theatres and opera, the women trailing their rich gownsover the rugged floor as they stared about them. (They were mostlystrangers from inland cities who had been attracted by the fame of thisnewest hotel. ) Their places were quickly taken by others in couples and inparties, and the hum of talk was feebly punctuated by occasional bursts ofteasing sound from the stringed instruments. Isabelle felt curiously alone, sitting here in the crowded dining room, --alone as she had not felt on themost solitary hillside of Grosvenor. She closed her eyes and saw thevillage in its cup among the mountains glittering white in the March sun. The thin, pure air of the forests filled her nostrils. She was homesick--for the first time in her life! With a little shake she roused herself andturned to Fosdick's article that she had brought with her to the table. Itwas all about the progress of the socialist parties abroad, their aims andaccomplishments, showing first-hand observation and knowledge; also avivaciously critical spirit, --in short what Gossom would call "a smartarticle. " ... There was another "serious" article on the problem of housingthe poor, amply illustrated. In the newspapers that she had glanced throughon her long journey, there had been likewise much about "movements, "political and social, speeches and societies organized to promote thisinterest or that, and endless references to the eternal conflict of capitaland labor, in the struggle for their respective shares of the human cake. It was the same with all the more serious magazines at the news-stand; theywere filled with discussion of "movements" for the betterment of humanity, of talk about this means or that to make the world run a little moresmoothly. It was proof, according to the editors, of the sound spirit ofdemocracy, fighting for ideals, making progress along right lines. In otherdays Isabelle would have considered Fosdick's article brilliant, if notprofound. She would have felt that here was something very important forserious people to know, and believed she was thinking.... To-nightFosdick's phrases seemed dead, like this hotel life, this hotel readingmatter. Even the impassioned editorial she had seen on child-labor laws, and the article on factory inspection, and the bill to regulate the hoursof labor on railroads--all the "uplift" movements--seemed dead, wooden, --part of the futile machinery with which earnest people deludedthemselves that they were doing something. Would all of them, even ifsuccessful, right the wrong of life in any deep sense? ... 

Isabelle laid down the magazine and looked over the room again. Her eyesfell on a party of four at one of the tables in front of her, beneath themural painting. While the food she had ordered was being slowly put beforeher, she watched them. There seemed something familiar about the black backof the man at the nearer side of the table, about the way he leanedforward, gesticulating from his wrists, and also about the large woman athis right with her head turned away. After a time this head came around andlooked down the room. It was Conny! Conny splendidly blond and large, inhalf-mourning, with a fresh touch of color on her pale face, her beautifulshoulders quite bare. And that full mouth and competent chin, --no one butConny! Isabelle hastily looked down at her plate. She had not recognizedthe others at the table. Conny was seated just beneath the pink and whitepainting representing spring, --a mixture of Botticelli brought to date andPuvis. And Conny carried on the allegory of Flora into full-blown summer. She was drinking her wine meditatively, and her firm chin--the Senator hadsaid it was moulded for an empress--was slightly tilted, revealing thethick, muscular neck. 

So long ago it was when Isabelle had been thrilled by her luncheon at theWoodyards'. She hurried her dinner now to escape the necessity of talkingto Conny when her party passed out. But as she prepared to rise, she sawthat they were coming towards her and sat down again, opening the magazine. From it she could see them, Conny in the lead sweeping forward in thatconsciously unconscious manner with which she took her world. The manbehind her had some trouble in keeping up with her pace; he limped, andalmost tripped on Conny's train. Isabelle saw him out of her loweredeyelids. It was Tom Cairy. They almost brushed her table as they passed, Conny and after her Tom. Conny was drawling in her treble note, "She made agreat sensation in Herndon's piece over in London. " ... And Isabelle wasconscious that she was sitting alone at the hotel table, staring intovacancy, with a waiter impatiently eying the coin in her hand.... 

She had looked at him for half an hour, not knowing him! And suddenly shesaw how dead it all was: not merely her feeling for Cairy, but her wholepast, the petty things clone or felt by that petty other self, ending withthe tragic fact of Vickers's sacrifice. She had passed through into anotherworld.... This man who had sat there near her all the evening she had oncebelieved that she loved more than life itself, --his mere voice had made hertremble, --this God she had created to worship! And she had not recognizedhim. 

High up in her corner of the brick and stone cliff above the twinklingcity, Isabelle knelt by the open window, looking out into the foggy night. Unconscious of the city sounds rising in one roar from the pavement, --thevoice of the giant metropolis, --she knelt there thinking of that dead past, that dead self, and of Vickers, a solemn unearthly music like the march oflife in her ears. She knelt there, wide-eyed, able to see it all calmly, something like prayer struggling upwards in her heart for expression. 

CHAPTER LXIX

All night long in the corridors of the cliff-city the elevator doors hadclicked, as they were opened and shut on the ceaseless trips to pack awaythe people in the eighteen stories. In the morning they became evenlivelier in their effort to take down the hungry guests for breakfast andthe day's business. The corridors and the lobbies and the foyer werethronged with the same people, freshly dressed for the day, fat or lean, heavy eyed or alert, pale, nervous, with quick tones and jerky movements. And there was a line of new arrivals before a fresh row of pale clerks. Theprominent people of the city, especially the women, had already left townfor the Springs or Florida or Paris or the Mediterranean, anywhere buthere! Their flitting, however, had made no impression on the hotels or thehoney-hives along the avenue. What they abandoned--the city in March withits theatres, opera, restaurants, and shops--the provincials came hungrilyto suck. For the cast-off, the spurned, is always Somebody's desired. 

It was the same on the other side of the ferry in the railroad terminal, hurrying throngs pressing through the little wickets that bore the legendof the destination of each train, --"The Florida East Coast Limited, " "NewOrleans, Texas, and the South, " "Washington and Virginia, " etc. From thiscentre the strands of travel ran outwards to many beguiling points. Andthere were two perpetual motions, --the crowd flowing out to some joy beyondthe horizon, and the crowd flowing back irresistibly to the suckingwhirlpool. Always movement, change, endless going, going with thesepeople, --the spirit of the race in their restless feet! There was alwaysthe Desirable beyond at the other end of the line. All the world that couldmove was in unstable flux, scurrying hither and thither in hot search forthe phantom Better--change, variety--to be had for the price of a ticket. 

It was a relief to be on the Pullman, seated for a time in a small fixedspace, free from the revolving whirlpool of restless humanity, though thatfixity itself was being whirled across the land. With a sigh Isabelleleaned back and looked at the passing country outside. The snow had longdisappeared, leaving the brown earth naked and forlorn. It was the samelandscape, under similar conditions, that Isabelle had gazed at the springafternoon when she was hurrying back to meet Cairy, his violets on herbreast. It seemed to her then that she was happy, with a wonderfulhappiness. Now she was content.... As the train rushed through theAlleghanies, the first faint touches of spring appeared in the swellingstems of the underbrush, in the full streams of yellow water, and the fewspears of green grass beside the sheltering fence posts, and the soft mistyatmosphere full of brooding changes over the level fields. 

Isabelle became eager to get on to her journey's end, to see her husband. Once out there with him, whatever accident befell them, she was equal toit, would see its real meaning, would find in it Peace. She had broughtwith her the copy of the _People's_ and a number of other magazines andbooks, and as the day waned she tried to interest herself in some of their"pleasant" stories. But her eyes wandered back to the landscape throughwhich they were speeding, to the many small towns past which theydarted, --ugly little places with ugly frame or brick buildings, stores andhouses and factories, dirty and drab, unlike the homely whiteness of theGrosvenor village street. But they were strangely attracting to hereye, --these little glimpses of other lives, seen as the train sped by, atthe back porches, the windows, the streets; the lives of the many fixed andset by circumstance, revolving between home and workshop, the lives of themultitude not yet evolved into ease and aspiration. But they counted, theselives of the multitude, --that was what she felt this day; they countedquite as much as here or any. She had travelled back and forth over thismain artery of the Atlantic and Pacific many times from her childhood up. But hitherto the scene had meant nothing to her; she had never looked at itbefore. She had whirled through the panorama of states, thinking only ofherself, what was to happen to her at the end of the journey. But to-day itwas _her_ country, _her_ people, _her_ civilization that she looked out on. The millions that were making their lives in all these ugly little houses, these mills and shops, men and women together, loving, marrying, breeding, and above all living! "All of life is good!" Each one of these millions hadits own drama, each to itself, as hers had been to her, with that tragicimportance of being lived but once from the germ to the ultimate dust. Eachone was its own epic, its own experience, and its own fulfilment. AsRenault once said, "Any of the possibilities may lie in a human soul. " Andin that was the hope and the faith for Democracy, --the infinite variety ofthese possibilities!

So the literature of "movements" and causes, the effort by organization toright the human fabric, seemed futile, for the most part. If man were rightwith himself, square with his own soul, each one of the millions, therewould be no wrongs to right by machinery, by laws, by discussion, byagitation, by theories or beliefs. Each must start with self, and rightthat.... Yes, the world needed a Religion, not movements nor reforms!

 * * * * *

... Sometime during the night Isabelle was roused by the stopping of thetrain, and pulling aside the curtain of the window she looked out. Thetrain was standing in the yards of a large station with many switch lightsfeebly winking along the tracks. At first she did not recognize the place;it might be any one of the division headquarters where the through trainsstopped to change engines. But as she looked at the maze of tracks, at thedingy red brick building beyond the yards, she finally realized that it wasTorso, the spot where her married life had begun. It gave her an oddsensation to lie there and look out on the familiar office building whereshe used to go for John--so long ago! Torso, she had felt at that time, wascramping, full of commonplace, ordinary people that one did not care toknow. She had been very anxious to escape to something larger, --to St. Louis and then to New York. She wondered what she would think of it now ifshe should go back, --of Mrs. Fraser and the Griscoms. Then she rememberedthe Falkners, and how badly it had gone since with Bessie. It was sad tothink back over the years and see how it might have been different, and forthe moment she forgot that if it had been different in any large sense, theresult would have been different. She would not be here now, the person shewas. Regret is the most useless of human states of mind.... The railroadoperatives were busy with lanterns about the train, tapping wheels, fillingthe ice-boxes and gas-tanks, and switching cars. She could see the faces ofthe men as they passed her section in the light of their lanterns. Withdeliberate, unconscious motions they performed their tasks. Like the faceof that lad on the engine at White River, these were the faces of ordinarymen, privates of the industrial world, and yet each had something about itdistinctive, of its own. What kept these privates at their work, each inhis place? Hunger, custom, faith? Surely something beyond themselves thatmade life seem to each one of them reasonable, desirable. Something notvery different from the spirit which lay in her own soul, like a calmingpotion, which she could almost touch when she needed its strength. "Forlife is good--all of it!" ... And "Peace is the rightful heritage of everysoul. "

The train rolled on towards its destination, and she fell asleep again, reassured. 

CHAPTER LXX

At the station in St. Louis a young man came forward from the crowd aboutthe gate and raised his hat, explaining to Isabelle that he had been sentby her husband to meet her. Mr. Lane, he said further, was in court andfound it impossible to be there. When she was in the cab and her trunk hadbeen secured the young man asked:--

"Where shall I tell him? The Price house?"

A picture of the familiar empty rooms, of waiting there with her ghosts, aggravated the disappointment she had felt at not seeing John on herarrival. She hesitated. 

"Could I go to the court?"

"Sure--of course; only Mr. Lane thought--"

"Get in, won't you, and come with me, " Isabelle said, interrupting him, andthen as the young man shyly took the vacant seat, she asked:--

"Aren't you Teddy Bliss? ... I haven't seen you for--years!" She added witha smile, "Since you played baseball in your father's back yard. How is yourmother?"

It gave her a sense of age to find the son of her old friend in thissmiling young man. Life was getting on apace.... The cab made its wayslowly into the heart of the city, and they talked of the old times whenthe Blisses had been neighbors across the alley from the Prices. Isabellewished to ask the young man about the trial. The New York paper that shehad seen on the train had only a short account. But she hesitated to showher ignorance, and Teddy Bliss was too much abashed before the handsomewife of his "boss" to offer any information. Finally Isabelle asked:--

"Is the trial nearly over?"

"Pretty near the end. Cross-examination to-day. When I left, Mr. Lane wason the stand. Then come the arguments and the judge's charge, and it goesto the jury. "

And he added with irresistible impulse:--

"It's a great case, Mrs. Lane! ... When our lawyers get after that districtattorney, he won't know what's happened to him.... Why, the road's securedthe best legal talent that ever argued a case in this district, so theytell me. That man Brinkerhoff is a corker!"

"Indeed!" Isabelle replied, smiling at the young man's enthusiasm for thescrap. To him it was all a matter of legal prowess with victory to theheavy battalions. 

"Federal court-rooms are in here temporarily, --crowded out of the federalbuilding, " her companion explained as the cab stopped before a grimy officebuilding. 

Isabelle had expected that the trial would be in some sort of publicbuilding, which might have at least the semblance of serving as a temple ofjustice. But justice, it seemed, like most else in this day, had toaccommodate itself to the practical life.... Upstairs there was a smallcrowd about the door of the court-room, through which the young man gainedadmission by a whispered word to the tobacco-chewing veteran that kept thegate. 

The court-room was badly lighted by two windows at the farther end, infront of which on a low platform behind a plain oak desk sat the judge, andgrouped about him informally the jurors, the lawyers, and stenographers, and mixed with these the defendants and witnesses. The body of the room, which was broken by bare iron pillars, was well filled with reporters andcurious persons. Isabelle sank into a vacant chair near the door and lookedeagerly for her husband. At last by craning her head she caught a partialview of him where he sat behind a pillar, his face bent downwards leaningon his hand, listening with an expression of weariness to the wrangle ofcounsel. He was sallow, and his attitude was abstracted, the attitude inwhich he listened at board meetings or gathered the substance of a wordyreport from a subordinate. It was not the attitude of a criminal on trialfor his honor! ... 

"That's Brinkerhoff, the big gun, " young Bliss whispered to Isabelle, indicating a gentle, gray-headed, smooth-shaven man, who seemed to betaking a nap behind his closed eyes. 

The judge himself was lolling back listlessly, while several men in frontof him talked back and forth colloquially. The argument between counselproceeded with polite irony and sarcastic iteration of stock phrases, "Ifyour honor pleases, " ... "My learned brother, the district attorney, " ... "The learned counsel for the defence, " etc. The judge's eyes rested on theceiling, as if he too wished to take a nap. There was a low hum ofconversation among the men grouped about the desk meanwhile, andoccasionally one of the young men who had been scribbling on a pad wouldgrasp his hat hurriedly and leave the room. Thus the proceedings draggedon. 

"They are arguing about admitting some evidence, " the young man at her sideexplained.... 

Isabelle, who had been living in a suppressed state of emotional excitementever since that night three days before when she had turned from thenewspapers to pack her trunk, felt a sudden limp reaction come over her. Apparently the whole proceeding was without vitality, --a kind of routinethrough which all parties had to go, knowing all the time that it settlednothing, --did not much count. The judge was a plain, middle-aged man in awrinkled sack coat, --very much in appearance what Conny would call a"bounder. " The defending counsel talked among themselves or wrote lettersor took naps, like the celebrated Mr. Brinkerhoff, and the counsel for thegovernment listened or made a remark in the same placid manner. It was allvery commonplace, --some respectable gentlemen engaged in a dull technicaldiscussion over the terms of the game, in which seemingly there was nomomentous personal interest involved. 

"The government's case will collapse if they can't get those books of thecoal companies in as evidence, " young Bliss informed Isabelle. He seemed tounderstand the rules of the game, --the point at issue. 

Surely the methods of modern justice are unpicturesque, unimpressive!Compare this trial of the cause of the People against the mighty Atlanticand Pacific railroad corporation _et al_. With the trial of the robberbaron dragged from his bleak castle perched above the highroad where he hadlaid in wait to despoil his fellow-men, weaker vessels, into the court ofhis Bishop, --there to be judged, to free himself if he might by graspinghot iron with his naked hand, by making oath over the bones of some saint, and if found guilty to be condemned to take the cross in the crusade forthe Saviour's sepulchre. Fantastic, that; but human--dramatic! And starklymemorable, like the row of his victim's heads nailed along the battlementsof his castle. More civilized, the modern tyrant takes the cash and letsthe victim die a natural death. Or compare this tedious legal game--whichdoes not count--with that pageant of England's trial of a corruptadministrator at the bar of Parliament! The issues involved are hardly lessvital to millions in the case of the People against the Atlantic andPacific _et al_. Than in the case of the races of India against WarrenHastings; but democracy is the essence of horse-sense. 'For these gentlemenbefore me, ' the judge seemed to say, 'are not criminals, no matter how thejury may render its verdict, in any ordinary sense of the term. They mayhave exceeded the prescribed limits in playing the game that all menplay, --the great predatory game of get all you can and keep it! ... Butthey are not common criminals. '

At last the judge leaned forward, his elbows on the desk:--

"The court orders that the papers in question be admitted as evidencepertinent to this case. "

Teddy Bliss looked chagrined. His side had been ruled against. 

"They'll be sure to reverse the decision on appeal, " he whisperedconsolatorily to his employer's wife. "An exception has been taken. "

That was apparently the opinion of those concerned who were grouped aboutthe judge's desk. There was no consternation, merely a slight movement asif to free muscles cramped by one position, a word or two among counsel. The great Brinkerhoff still wore that placid look of contemplation, as ifhe were thinking of the new tulip bulbs he had imported from Holland forhis house up the Hudson. He was not aroused even when one of hisfellow-counsel asked him a question. He merely removed his glasses, wipedthem reflectively, and nodded to his colleague benignantly. He knew, as theothers knew, that the case would be appealed from the verdict of the juryto a higher court, and very likely would turn up ultimately in the highestcourt of all at Washington, where after the lapse of several years thequestion at issue would be argued wholly on technicalities, and finallydecided according to the psychological peculiarities of the variouspersonalities then composing the court. The residuum of justice thus metedout to his clients--if they were not successful before in maintaining theircontention--would not affect these honorable gentlemen appreciably. Thecorporation would pay the legal expenses of the protracted litigation, andhand the bill on to the public ultimately, and the people by their taxeswould pay their share of this row.... He put on his glasses and resumed hismeditation. 

"Court is adjourned. " At last! Isabelle stood up eagerly, anxious to catchher husband's attention. He was talking with the lawyers. The young clerkwent up to him and touched his elbow, and presently Lane came down the roomin the stream of reporters and lawyers bent on getting to luncheon. It wasneither the place nor the time that Isabelle would have preferred formeeting her husband after their long separation. There was so much in herheart, --this meeting meant so much, must be so much for them both in allthe future years. The familiar solid figure, with the reserved, impassiveface came nearer; Lane reached out his hand. There were lines about themouth, and his hair seemed markedly gray. 

"John!" was all she could say. 

"Glad to see you, Isabelle!" he replied. "Sorry I couldn't meet you at thestation. Everything all right?"

It was his usual kindly, rather short-hand manner with her. 

"Yes, " she said, "everything is all right. " She felt as if all thesignificance of her act had been erased. 

"You know your mother hasn't come back from the Springs, " he added, "butthey are expecting you at the house. "

"Can't we go somewhere and have luncheon together? I want so much to seeyou!" she urged. 

"I wish I might, but I have these lawyers on my hands--must take them tothe club for luncheon. Sorry I shall be kept here until late in theafternoon. I will put you in a cab. " And he led the way to the elevator. Asalways he was kind and considerate. But in his equable manner was therealso some touch of coldness, of aloofness from this wife, who had takenthis curious opportunity to come into his affairs?

"Thank you, " she faltered, as he looked down the street for a cab. "Couldn't I go somewhere about here for luncheon and come back afterwardsto the court-room? I should like to wait for you. "

"Why, if you want to, " he replied, looking at her with surprise. And as ifdivining a reason for her agitation, he said: "You mustn't mind what thepapers say. It won't amount to anything, either way it goes. "

"I think I'll stay, " she said hurriedly. 

"Very well. I will call Bliss to take you to a hotel. "

He beckoned to the waiting young man, and while Mr. Bliss was finding acab, Lane said to his wife:--

"You are looking very well. The country has done you good?"

"Yes! I am very well, --all well!" She tried to smile buoyantly. "I don'texpect ever to be ill again. "

He received this as a man accustomed to the vagaries of woman's health, andsaid, "That's good!"

Then he put her into the cab, gave some instructions to the young man, andraised his hat. His manner was perfect to her, and yet Isabelle went to herluncheon with the bubbling Mr. Bliss sad at heart. She was such anoutsider, such a stranger to her husband's inner self! That it was to beexpected, her own fault, the result of the misspent years of married lifemade it none the easier to bear.... 

Mr. Teddy Bliss exercised his best connoisseurship in selecting the dishesfrom the printed broadside put before him at the hotel restaurant, consulting Isabelle frequently as to her tastes, where the desire to pleasewas mingled with the pride of appearing self-possessed. Having finallydecided on tomato bisque aux crutons, prairie chicken, grilled sweetpotatoes, salad and peche Melba, which was all very much to his liking, hedropped the card and looked at Isabelle with a broad smile. The world andits affairs still had an irrepressible zest and mirthful aspect to youngMr. Bliss. 

"You're likely to hear some or-a-tory this afternoon, Mrs. Lane, " hescoffed. "The district attorney is a Southerner, and he's going to spreadhimself when he makes his plea, you can believe. It's his chance to gettalked about from San Francisco to Washington.... Of course it don't cutany ice what he says, but the papers will play it up large, and that's whatthey are after, the government. You see"--he waxed confidential--"thegovernment's got to save its face somehow after all the talk and the dustthey have raised. If they can secure a conviction, --oh, just a nominal fine(you know there is no prison penalty), --why, it'll be good campaignmaterial this fall. So they fixed on the A. And P. As a shining mark fortheir shot. And you know there's a good deal of feeling, especially in thisstate, against railroads. "

"I see!" In spite of herself Isabelle was amused at the naive assurance theyoung man had given her that nothing serious could happen to herhusband, --not imprisonment! Mr. Bliss's point of view about the famous casewas evidently that of the railroad office, tinged with a blithe sportinginterest in a legal scrap. The ill-paid government attorneys trying thecase were a lot of "light-weight mits, " put up against the best "talent" inthe country employed by the powerful corporation to protect itself; inshort, a sure thing for the railroad in the final knockout if not in thefirst round. 

"It was bad, their getting in those Pleasant Valley Company books, " heremarked less exuberantly. "But it won't make any difference in the end. The papers have made the most of that evidence already. "

"Why do you suppose the newspapers are so bitter against the road?"

"They aren't, the best of them; they know too much what's good for them. They just print the record of the trial. As for the sensational ones, yousee it's this way, --they don't care, they haven't any convictions. It isjust a matter of business for them. Slamming the corporations suits theirreaders. The people who buy most of the papers like to have the prosperousclasses slammed. Most people are envious; they want the other fellow'sroll, --isn't that so? They think they are as good as the best, and it makes'em sick to see the other fellow in his automobile when they are earningfifteen or eighteen per! They don't stop to consider that it's brains thatmakes the diff. "

"So it is merely envy that produces all this agitation?"

"I am not saying that the corporations are philanthropic institutions, " Mr. Bliss continued didactically; "of course they aren't. They are out forbusiness, and every man knows what that means. I suppose they do a goodmany tough things if they get the chance--same as their critics. What ofit? Wouldn't the little fellow do the same thing, if he could, --had thechance? ... What would this country be to-day without the corporations, therailroads? Without the Atlantic and Pacific, right here in St. Louis? Andall the work of those men they are prosecuting and fining and trying to putinto jail? Why, if the President had his way, he'd lock up every man thathad enough sense and snap in him to do things, and he'd make this countrylike a Methodist camp meeting after the shouting is over! There's no senseto it. "

Isabelle laughed at the young man's vigorous defence of "our" side. Itseemed useless to attempt to pick flaws in his logic, and it would hardlybecome her as the wife of his "boss" to betray that she was not whollyconvinced of his accuracy. 

"Besides, why can't the government let bygones be bygones? Every one knowsthat the roads did some queer things in the old days. But why rake up oldcrimes and make a mess? I say let's have a clean slate and begin over.... But if they keep on legislating and howling against corporations, like someof these trust-busting state legislatures, we'll have a panic sure thing, and that will do the business for the reformers, won't it now?"

This, as Isabelle realized, was, in the popular language of Mr. TeddyBliss, her husband's point of view, the philosophy of the ruling class, imbibed by their dependents. As the young man turned from expounding thebusiness situation to his succulent bird, Isabelle had time for reflection. 

This young man was sucking his views about honesty, business morality, fromthe Atlantic and Pacific, from her husband. One of Renault's sentences cameto her, "We all live in large part on a borrowed capital of suggestedideas, motives, desires. " And the corollary: "Each is responsible not onlyfor the capital that he borrows from others, --that it should really be theright idea for him, --but also for the capital he lends, --the suggestions hegives to others--possibly less stable minds. For thus by borrowing andlending ideas is created that compulsive body of thought throughout theuniverse on which we all act. "

Her husband was on trial for that which he had borrowed and thus made hisown, as well as for that which he had passed on into life--to Mr. TeddyBliss, for example. 

CHAPTER LXXI

The government attorney had already begun his argument when Isabelle, escorted by Teddy Bliss, returned to the court-room. The district attorneywas a short, thick-set, sallow-faced man, with bushy gray hair growing inthe absurd "Pompadour" fashion, and a homely drooping mustache. Another"bounder, " thought Isabelle, one of the hungry outsiders, not in fee to thecorporations, who hired only the best lawyers. Perhaps he was aware of hisposition there in the dingy court-room before the trained gladiators of hisprofession--and also before his country! The lawyers for the defendantslolling in their chairs settled themselves placidly to see what this humblebrother would make of the business. Mr. Brinkerhoff's eyelids drooped overhis gentle eyes, as if to shut out all distractions of sense from hisbrain. The thick-set district attorney frequently scraped his throat andrepeated the phrase, "if it please your honor. " He had a detestable nasalwhine, and he maltreated the accents of several familiar words. The cultureof letters and vocal delivery had evidently not been large in the smallinland college where he had been educated. These annoying peculiarities atfirst distracted Isabelle's attention, while the lawyer labored through theopening paragraphs of his argument. In the maze of her thoughts, which hadjumped across the continent to the little mountain village, there fell onher ears the words, "In a land of men born free and equal before the law. "Was it the tone of unexpected passion vibrating through those ancientwords, or the idea itself that startled her like an electric shock? Thatpathetic effort of our ancestors to enact into constitutional dogma thepoetic dream of a race! "Born free and equal"!--there was nothing moreabsurd, more contrary to the daily evidence of life, ever uttered. Isabellefancied she saw a soft smile play over the benign face of Mr. Brinkerhoff, as if he too had been struck by the irony of the words. But to the districtattorney they did not seem to be a mere poetic aspiration, nor a catchphrase with which to adorn his speech; they voiced a real idea, stillpulsating with passionate truth. From this moment Isabelle forgot thelawyer's nasal intonation, his uncultivated delivery. 

He stood there, so it seemed, as the representative of the mute millionswhich make the nation to defend before the court their cause against therapacious acts of the strong. This great railroad corporation, with itscapital of three hundred and seventy-five millions of dollars in stocks andbonds (a creature, nevertheless, of the common public, called intoexistence by its necessities and chartered by its will), had taken uponitself to say who should dig coal and sell it from the lands along itslines. They and their servants and allies had, so the charge ran, seizedeach individual man or association of men not allied to them, and throttledthe life in them--specifically refusing them cars in which to transporttheir coal, denying them switching privileges, etc.... The government, following its duty to protect the rights of each man and all men againstthe oppression of the few, had brought this suit to prohibit these secretpractices, to compel restitution, to punish the corporation and itsservants for wrong done.... "The situation was, if your honor please, as ifa company of men should rivet a chain across the doors of certainwarehouses of private citizens and should prevent these citizens fromtaking their goods out of their warehouses or compel them to pay toll forthe privilege of transacting their lawful business.... And the governmenthas shown, if it please your honor, that this Pleasant Valley Coal Companyis but a creature of the defendant corporation, its officers and ownersbeing the servants of the railroad company, and thereby this PleasantValley Coal Company has enjoyed and now enjoys special privileges in thematter of transportation, cars, and switching facilities. The governmenthas further shown that the Atlantic and Pacific, by its servant, JohnLane.... "

At this point the railroad counsel looked interested; even the serene Mr. Brinkerhoff deigned to unclose his eyes. For the district attorney, havingdisposed of his oratorical flourish of trumpets, had got down to the factsof the record and what they could be made to prove. In the close argumentthat followed, Isabella's thoughts went back to that trumpet phrase, --"allmen born free and equal. " Slowly there dawned in her an altogether newcomprehension of what this struggle before her eyes, in which her husbandwas involved, meant. Nay, what human life itself, with all its noisydiscord, meant!

Their forerunners, the fathers of the people, held the theory that here atlast, in this broad, rich, new land, men should struggle with one anotherfor the goods of life on an equal basis. Man should neither oppress norinterfere with man. Justice at last to all! The struggle should be orderedby law so that men might be free to struggle and equal in their rights. Toall the same freedom to live, to enjoy, to become! So these fathers of therepublic had dreamed. So some still dreamed that human life might beordered, to be a fair, open struggle--for all. 

But within a brief century and a quarter the fallacy of this aspiration hadbecome ridiculously apparent. "Born free and equal!" Nothing on this globewas ever so born. The strong who achieved, the weak who succumbed--bothknew the nonsense of it. Free and equal, --so far as men could maintainfreedom and equality by their own force, --that was all!

(There was that man who begged John to give him cars. Poor thing! he couldnot maintain his right. )

And every man who complained at the oppression of another either oppressedsome one or would so oppress him, if he had the chance and the power. Itwas, of course, the business of the law to police the fight, --the game hadits rules, its limits, which all must obey, when not too "destructive. " Butessentially this new land of liberty and hope was like all other humansocieties, --a mortal combat where the strong triumphed and the weak wentunder in defeat.... That was what the array of brilliant counsel employedby the Atlantic and Pacific really represented. "Gentlemen, you can't blockus with silly rules. We must play this game of life as it was ordered byGod it should be played when the first protoplasm was evolved.... Andreally, if it were not for us, would there be any game for you littlefellows to play?"

Egotism, the curse of egotism! This was stark male egotism, --the instinctfor domination. And defendants and plaintiffs were alike in spirit, struggling for position in the game. The weaker ones--if they had thehold--would pluck at the windpipe of their oppressors.... 

So while the attorney for the people spoke on about rate-sheets andschedules A and B, and bills of lading from the Pleasant Valley Company(marked "exhibits nine and ten"), the woman in the court-room began tocomprehend dimly the mystery behind this veil of words. Every man feltinstinctively this spirit of fight, --the lively young clerk at her side aswell as the defendant before the bar, her husband; the paid writers for Mr. Gossom's patriotic magazine as well as the President and his advisers, --allhad it in their blood. It was the spirit of our dominating race, fosteredthrough the centuries, --the spirit of achievement, of conquest. Mr. Gossom's clever writers, the President, and the "good element" generally, differed from their opponents only in manner and degree. "Gently, gently, gentlemen, " they called. "Play according to the rules of the game. Don'tbang all the breath out of your adversary's body when you have him by thethroat. Remember, gentlemen, to give every one his turn!"

In the light of this understanding of the nature of the game of life, theefforts of the government to preserve order in a row of this magnitudebecame almost farcical, --so long as the spirit of man was untouched andSUCCESS was admittedly the one glorious prize of life! ... 

Finally the district attorney ceased to speak, and the judge looked at hiswatch. There was not time for the defence to make its argument to-day, andso court was adjourned. The lawyers stretched themselves, chatted, andlaughed. The raw district attorney had done his worst, and judging from Mr. Brinkerhoff's amiable smile, it was not very bad. The newspaper menscurried out of the room for the elevators, --there was good copy thisafternoon!

Lane joined his wife after a few moments, and they left the court-room. 

"Are you tired?" he asked solicitously. "It must have been dull for you, all that law talk. "

"Oh, no! ... I think I was never so much interested in anything in mylife, " she replied with a long sigh. 

He looked as if he were puzzled, but he made no further reference to thetrial, either then or on their way to her mother's house. And Isabelle in atumult of impressions and feelings was afraid to speak yet, afraid lest shemight touch the wrong nerve, strike the wrong note, --and so set themfarther apart in life than they were now. 

CHAPTER LXXII

They dined in the lofty, sombre room at the rear of the house, overlookinga patch of turf between the house and the stable. Above the massivesideboard hung an oil portrait of the Colonel, a youthful painting butvigorous, where something of the old man's sweetness and gentle wisdom hadbeen caught. This dining room had been done over the year before Isabellewas married; its taste seemed already heavy and bad. 

Her mother's old servants served the same rich, substantial meal they hadserved when she was a child, with some poor sherry, the Colonel's onlyconcession to domestic conviviality. The room and the food subtly typifiedthe spirit of the race, --that spirit which was illuminated in thecourt-room--before it had finally evolved.... The moral physiology of menis yet to be explored!

Lane leaned back in the Colonel's high-backed chair, gray and weary underthe brilliant light. At first he tried to be interested in Grosvenor, askedquestions of his wife, but soon he relapsed into a preoccupied silence. This mood Isabelle had never seen in her husband, nor his physicallassitude. After a time she ventured to ask:--

"Is it likely to last much longer, the trial?"

"A couple of days, the lawyers think. " And after a while he added morosely:"Nobody can tell how long if it is appealed.... I have had to muddle awaythe better part of the winter over this business, first and last! It'snothing but popular clamor, suspicion. The government is playing to thegallery. I don't know what the devil will happen to the country with thislunatic of a President. Capital is already freezing up tight. The road willhave to issue short-time notes to finance the improvements it has underway, and abandon all new work. Men who have money to invest aren't going tobuy stock and bonds with a set of anarchists at Washington running thecountry!"

It was quite unlike Lane to explode in this manner. It was not merely theresult of nervous fatigue, Isabelle felt: it indicated some concealed sorein her husband's mind. 

"How do you think it will be decided?" she asked timidly. 

"The trial? Nobody can guess. The judge is apparently against us, and thatwill influence the jurors, --a lot of farmers and sore-heads! ... But theverdict will make no difference. We shall carry it up, fight it out tillthe last court. The government has given us enough errors, --all the openingwe need!"

The government had played badly, that is. Isabelle had it on her tongue todemand: "But how do _you_ feel about it, --the real matter at issue? What isright--_just_?" Again she refrained, afraid to array herself apparently onthe side of his enemies. 

"It is all this infernal agitation, which does nobody any good and willresult in crippling business, " he repeated, as they went to the library fortheir coffee. 

This room, where the Colonel usually sat evenings with his wife and theneighbors who dropped in, was exactly as it had been in the old days, --eventhe same row of novels and books of travel in a rack on the polished table. Only the magazines had been changed. 

Lane lighted a cigar and sipped his coffee. Revived by his dinner andcigar, he began to talk more freely, in the same mood of disgustedirritation, the mood of his class these days, of the men he met at hisclub, in business, --the lawyers, the capitalists, the leaders of society. Isabelle, listening to his bitter criticism, wished that she might get himto speak more personally, --tell her all the detail that had led up to thesuit, explain his connection with it, --show her his inmost heart as hewould show it to himself in a time of exact truth! With this feeling shewent over to where he was sitting and put her hand on his shoulder, and ashe glanced up in surprise at this unexpected demonstration, she saidimpulsively:--

"John, please, John! ... Tell me everything--I can understand.... Don't youthink there might be some little truth in the other side? Was the roadfair, was it just in this coal business? I so want to know, John!"

Her voice trembled with suppressed emotion. She wished to draw him to her, in the warmth of her new feeling to melt his stern antagonism, his harshmood. But as he looked inquiringly at her--weighing as it were the meaningof this sudden interest in his affairs--the wife realized how far apart shewas from her husband. The physical separation of all these years, theemotional separation, the intellectual separation had resulted in placingthem in two distinct spheres spiritually. The intervening space could notbe bridged in a moment of expansive emotion. It would be a slow matter, ifit ever could be accomplished, to break the crust that had formed like icebetween their souls. Isabelle went back to her seat and drank her coffee. 

"I don't know what you mean by fair and just, " he replied coldly. "Businesshas to be done according to its own rules, not as idealists or reformerswould have it done. The railroad has done nothing worse than every bigbusiness is compelled to do to live, --has made a profit where there was oneto make.... This would be a poor sort of country, even for the reformersand agitators, if the men who have the power to make money should be boundhand and foot by visionaries and talkers. You can't get the sort of mencapable of doing things on a large scale to go into business for clerk'swages. They must see a profit--and a big one, --and the men who aren't worthanything will always envy them. That's the root of the whole matter. "

It would be useless, Isabelle saw, to point out that his defence wasgeneral, and an evasion of the point she wished to see clearly, --what thereal _fact_ with him was. His mind was stiffened by the prejudices of hisprofession, tempered in fierce fires of industrial competition as a resultof twenty years of triumphant struggle with men in the life and deathgrapple of business. He was strong just because he was narrow and blind. Ifhe had been able to doubt, even a little, the basis of his actions, hewould never have become the third vice-president of the Atlantic andPacific, one of the most promising of the younger men in his profession. 

Recognizing her defeat, Isabelle asked about the Johnstons. 

"I have seen Steve a couple of times, " Lane replied. "I meant to write you, but hadn't the time. Steve didn't make good in that lumber business. Thosemen he went in with, it looks to me, were sharks. They took all his moneyaway, --every cent. You know they mortgaged the house, too. Then the companyfailed; he was thrown out. Steve was not sharp enough for them, I guess. "

"Isn't that too bad!"

"Just what might have been expected, " Lane commented, associating SteveJohnston's failure with his previous train of thought; "I told him so whenhe gave up railroading. He was not an all-round man. He had one talent--agood one--and he knew the business he was trained in. But it wasn't goodenough for him. He must get out and try it alone--"

"It wasn't to make more money, " Isabelle protested, remembering the day atthe Farm when the two men had walked back and forth, delaying luncheon, while they heatedly discussed Steve's determination to change his business. 

"He had this reform virus in his system, too! ... Well, he is bookkeeper, now, for some little down-town concern at eighteen hundred a year. All hecan get these days. The railroads are discharging men all the time. Hemight be earning six thousand in the position I offered him then. Do youthink Alice and the boys will be any better off for his scruples? Or thecountry?"

"Poor Alice! ... Are they still living in the house at Bryn Mawr?"

"Yes, I believe so. But Steve told me he couldn't carry the mortgage afterthe first of the year, --would have to give up the house. "

"I must go out there to-morrow, " she said quickly; and after a time sheadded, "Don't you think we could do something for them, John?"

Lane smiled, as if the suggestion had its touch of irony. 

"Why, yes! I mean to look into his affairs when I can find the time.... I'll see what I can do. "

"Oh, that is good !" Isabelle exclaimed warmly. It was like her husband, prompt generosity to a friend in trouble. And this matter brought husbandand wife closer in feeling than they had been since her arrival. 

"Ready money is a pretty scarce commodity, " Lane remarked; "but I will seewhat can be done about his mortgage. "

It was not easy, he wished his wife to know, even for the strong to begenerous these days, thanks to the reformers, and the "crazy man inWashington, " with whom he suspected she sympathized. 

They sat in silence after this until he had finished his cigar. There weremany subjects that must be discussed between them, which thrust up theirheads like sunken rocks in a channel; but both felt their danger. At lastIsabelle, faint from the excitement of the day, with all its mutations ofthought and feeling, went to her room. She did not sleep for hours, notuntil long after she heard her husband's step go by the door, and the clickof the switches as he turned out the electric lights. 

There was much to be done before their marriage could be recreated on aliving principle. But where the man was strong and generous, and the womanwas at last awakened to life, there was no reason to despair. 

CHAPTER LXXIII

Isabelle did not go back to the court-room to listen to the remainingarguments, not even to hear Mr. Brinkerhoff's learned and ingenious plea inbehalf of the rights of capital, the sacred privileges of property. Shefelt that John would rather not have her there. But Isabelle read everyword of the newspaper report of the trial, which since the districtattorney's impassioned and powerful plea had excited even greater publicinterest than before. Not only locally, but throughout the country, thetrial of the People vs. The Atlantic and Pacific et al. Was recognized asthe first serious effort of the reform administration to enforce the lawsagainst capital, by convicting not merely the irresponsible agents but alsosome of the men "higher up. " It was John Lane's position in the railroadthat gave these "coal cases" their significance. 

Isabelle read the report of the trial with thoughtful care, but much of itwas too technical for her untrained mind to grasp. All these argumentsabout admitting certain ledgers in evidence, all these exceptions to therulings of the court, the dodges, fences, pitfalls, the dust created by theskilled counsel for the defence, confused her. What she gathered in ageneral way was that the road was fighting its case on technicalities, seeking to throw the suit out of court, without letting the one real matterat issue appear, --had they dealt illegally and unjustly with the public? Toher emotional temperament this eminently modern method of tactics wasirritating and prejudiced her against her husband's side. "But I don'tunderstand, " she reflected sadly, "so John would say. And they don't seemto want people to understand!"

With these thoughts on her mind, she took the cars to the little suburbnorth of the city, where the Johnstons lived. Bryn Mawr was one of thenewer landscape-gardened of our city suburbs, with curving roads, grass-plots, an art _nouveau_ railroad station, shrubs and poplar sticksset out along the cement sidewalks, in an effort to disguise the rawness ofthe prairie pancake that the contractors had parcelled into lots. Isabellefound some difficulty in tracing her way along the ingeniously twistedavenues to the Johnston house. But finally she reached thetwo-story-and-attic wooden box, which was set in a little grove of mapletrees. Two other houses were going up across the street, and a trench for anew sewer had been opened obstructively. At this period of belated springBryn Mawr was not a charming spot. Unfinished edges left by the landscapegardener and the contractor showed pitilessly against the leafless, scrubbytrees and the rolling muddy fields beyond. It was all covered with a chillmist. In the days when she lived in St. Louis she had never found time togo so far to see Alice, and she had shared Bessie's horror of the remoteand cheerless existence in this suburb, had wondered how an intelligent andwell-bred woman like Alice Johnston could endure its dull level ofplatitudinous existence. But now as she picked her way across the sewerexcavation, she felt that the little wooden box ahead of her was home forthis family, --they must not lose that! Place and circumstance had lessenedin her estimates of life. 

Alice opened the door herself, and with a radiant smile of hungry delightenveloped Isabelle in her arms. 

"Where did you drop from, Belle?"

"Oh, I thought I'd come on, " Isabelle replied vaguely, not liking tomention the trial. 

"And you found your way out here, and navigated that ewer safely! The boysfind it surpassingly attractive, --as a coal mine, or a canal in Mars, orthe Panama ditch. I've tried to induce Mr. Jorgesson, the contractor, tohang out a lantern or two at night. But he evidently thinks well of thecaution and sobriety of the Johnston family and prefers to take his chancesof a suit for damages. So far the family has escaped. "

Alice's face showed two girlish dimples, while she talked glibly, --tooglibly, Isabelle thought. They went into the dining room where there was atiny coal fire before which Alice had been sewing. Isabelle'snamesake--number two in the list--having been considered by her aunt, wasdismissed on an errand. The older boys were at school, the baby out in thekitchen "with the colored lady who assists, " as Alice explained. 

When they were alone, the cousins looked at each other, each thinking ofthe changes, the traces of life in the other. Isabelle held out her handsyearningly, and Alice, understanding that she knew what had befallen them, smiled with trembling lips. Yet it was long before she could speak of theirmisfortune in her usual calm manner. 

... "The worst is that we have had to take Ned out of the technicalinstitute and send him back to the school here with Jack. It isn't a goodschool. But we may move into the city in the fall.... And Belle had to giveup her music. We all have to chip in, you see!"

"She mustn't give up her music. I shall send her, " Isabelle said quickly, reflecting whimsically how she had loathed her own music lessons. Aliceflushed, and after a moment's pause said deliberately:--

"Do you really mean that, Isabelle?"

"Of course! I only hope she will get more out of it than I did. "

"I should be glad to accept your offer for her sake.... I want her to havesomething, some interest. A poor girl without that, --it is worse for herthan for the boys!"

Isabelle could see Alice's struggle with her pride, and understood theimportance of this little matter to her, which had made her deliberatelyclutch at the chance for the little girl. 

"Belle shall come to me to-morrow and spend the day. I will send for theteacher.... Now that's settled, and, Alice, you and Steve will be betteroff soon! He is too able a man--"

Alice shook her head steadily, saying:--

"I am afraid not, Belle! Steve is too good a man, that is the trouble. Idon't say this to him. I wouldn't take a particle of hope from him. But Iknow Steve all through: he isn't the kind to impress people, to geton, --and he is no longer young. "

"It is such a pity he left the railroad, " Isabelle mused. "John says theyare turning men off instead of taking them on, or he might have found aposition for him. "

"Never!" Alice's eyes flamed. "If it had to be done over, even now, weshould do the same thing.... Steve is slow and quiet, never says much, buthe does a lot of thinking. And when he makes up his mind, he sticks.... When he saw what it meant to take that position in the traffic department, what he would have to know and do, he couldn't do it. It is useless tryingto make a man like Steve live contrary to his nature. You can't bend a big, thick tree any way you want it. "

"But, Alice, he might have been wrong!" Isabelle protested, coloring. 

"Yes, --he might have been wrong, " Alice admitted, her eyes falling. "ButSteve couldn't see it any other way. So he had to do as he did.... And thelumber business failed. I was afraid it would! Dear Steve! He wasn't fittedto fight with those men, to see that they didn't cheat him. "

It was later that Alice uttered the deep cry of her heart. 

... "Don't think, Belle, that I mind the hard times, the work and all; noteven the school for Ned, and the poor prospect for the children. After all, they may do as well without the advantages we could have given them. Butwhat breaks my heart is to see Steve, who is bigger and abler and strongerthan most men, go down to the bottom of the ladder and have to take hisorders from an ignorant little German. It's small of me, I know, and Stevedoesn't complain. But it seems to me terribly unjust somehow. "

For a moment her feeling overcame her; then she recovered her composure andcontinued: "But then, it's Steve! And I wouldn't have him a particledifferent, not for all the success in the world. You see I have my pride, my snobbery. I am a snob about my husband. "

The boys came in from school, and the house shook with racketing children. 

"They don't know what has happened, really, --they are too young, thankHeaven!" Alice exclaimed. "And I don't mean they ever shall know--everthink they are poor. "

The two stood on the porch for a last word, arranging for the little girl'svisit to Isabelle on the morrow. The twilight had descended through themist. 

"See!" Alice said, pointing to the white tree trunks across the street, andthe vague fields beyond. "Isn't it very much like that Corot the Colonelused to love so much, --the one in the library? We have our Corot, too.... Good-by, dear! I have chattered frightfully about ourselves. Some day youmust tell me of your stay with Mrs. Pole and of yourself. "

"There isn't much to tell!"

Alice Johnston, watching her cousin's agreeable figure disappear into themist, felt that if with Isabelle there might be not much to tell, at leasta great deal had happened these last months. 

And Isabelle, picking her way cautiously along the sewer excavation, wasthinking of the home behind. The couple of hours she had spent with Alicehad been filled with a comprehension, a curiously immediate grasp of theother person's vision of life, --what it all meant to her, --Alice'sdisappointment, her pride in her defeated husband. For the first time inall the years she had known them, Steve and Alice and the children seemedquite real persons, and their life as vivid, as interesting to her, as herown. 

Sad as their little story was, in its pathetic limitations of plans andhopes, it did not seem to her intolerable, or sordid, or depressing, as itonce would have seemed. Just as she possessed somewhere in herself a newstrength to endure whatever misfortune might come to her, so she had aninstinctive feeling of how others endured what on the surface of eventsseemed merely distressing and disagreeable. And the Johnston house, plainand homely as it was, with all the noisy children, had an air of peaceabout it, the spirit of those that dwelt there, which Isabelle felt to bethe most precious thing on earth.... Alice had said, "It's Steve--and Iwouldn't have him different for all the success in the world!" The wordsstung Isabelle. Such was marriage, --perfect marriage, --to be able to saythat in the face of worldly defeat. Neither she nor John could ever saythat about the other. 

CHAPTER LXXIV

The newsboys were crying the verdict up and down the wet street. Across thefront page of the penny sheet which Isabelle bought ran in broad, splotchedletters: GUILTY; RAILROAD GRAFTERS FINED; and in slightly smaller type:_Atlantic and Pacific found guilty of illegal discrimination in famous coalcases--Fined eighty-five thousand dollars. Vice-president Lane, GeneralTraffic Manager of Road, fined thirteen thousand six hundred and eightydollars_, etc. Isabelle crumpled the paper into her muff and hurried home. As she walked numbly, she thought, 'Why six hundred and eighty dollars? whyso exact?' As if the precise measure of wrong could be determined! On thedoorstep of her mother's house lay the quietly printed, respectabletwo-cent evening paper that the family had always read. Isabelle took thisalso with her to her room. Even in this conservative sheet, favorable tothe interests of the property classes, there were scare-heads about theverdict. It was of prime importance as news. Without removing her hat orcoat, Isabelle read it all through, --the judge's charge to the jury, theverdict, the reporters' gossip of the court-room. The language of the judgewas trenchant, and though his charge was worded in stiff and solemn formand laden with legal phrases, Isabelle understood it better even than thehot eloquence of the district attorney. It swept away all that legal dust, those technical quibbles, which Mr. Brinkerhoff and his associate counselhad so industriously sprinkled over the issue. "If the facts have beenestablished of such and such a nature, beyond reasonable doubt; if theconnection of the defendant has been clearly set forth, " etc. As the pennysheet put it, "Judge Barstow's charge left no room for doubt as to theverdict. The jury was out forty minutes and took one ballot. " Twelve men, be they farmers or "sore-heads, " had found John Lane guilty of somethingvery like grand larceny. The case was to be appealed--of course. 

Even the respectable two-cent paper delivered itself editorially on theverdict in the famous coal cases, with unusual daring. For the _Post_ wasordinarily most cautious not to reflect upon matters inimical to "leadinginterests. " To-night it was moved beyond the limits of an habitualprudence. 

"Judge Barstow, " it said, "in his able analysis left no room for doubt asto the gravity of the charges brought by the government against theAtlantic and Pacific and certain of its officers. The verdict will be nosurprise to those who have followed closely the so-called coal casesthrough the preliminary investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commissionand the recent trial. A state of affairs in the management of the Atlanticand Pacific railroad was revealed that may well shock men long accustomedto the methods of corporate control. It was shown that officers andemployees of the railroad owned or controlled various coal properties thatdepended for their existence upon special favors given them by the road, and that these companies were enabled by their secret alliance with therailroad to blackmail independent, rival companies, and drive them out ofexistence. To put it in plain words, the Atlantic and Pacific favored itssecret partners at the expense of their competitors.... Apart from thelegal aspect so ably dealt with by Judge Barstow, the spectacle of graft inthe Atlantic and Pacific must surprise the stockholders of that corporationquite as much as the public at large. Apparently high-salaried officialsshared in these extra profits together with freight clerks and divisionsuperintendents! ... We cannot believe that the moral sense of the countrywill long tolerate a condition of affairs such as has been revealed in thecase of Vice-president Lane. "... 

This was no academic question of economic policy! No legal technicality. The paper fell from Isabelle's hand, and she sat staring at the floor. Herhusband was called in plain prose a "grafter, "--one who participated inunearned and improper profits, due to granting favors in his officialcapacity to himself. 

As Isabelle closed the old-fashioned shutters before dressing for dinner, she saw her husband coming up the steps, walking with his slow, powerfulstride, his head erect, --the competent, high-minded, generous man, a rockof stable strength, as she had always believed him, even when she loved himleast! There must be something wrong with the universe when this man, thebest type of hard, intelligent labor, should have become a public robber!... Renault's solemn words repeated themselves, "The curse of our age, ofour country, is its frantic egotism. " The predatory instinct, so highlyvalued in the Anglo-Saxon male, had thriven mightily in a country of people"born free and equal, " when such a man as John Lane "grafted" and believedhimself justified. 

 * * * * *

Lane stood behind her chair waiting for her in the dining room. As sheentered the room he glanced at her questioningly. He had noticed that theevening paper was not in its usual place in the hall. But after that glancehe settled himself composedly for the meal, and while the servants were inthe room husband and wife talked of immediate plans. He said he should haveto go to New York the next day, and asked what she wished to do. Would shewait here in St. Louis for her mother? Or join her at the Springs? Or openthe Farm? He should have to be back and forth between New York and St. Louis all the spring, probably. 

Isabelle could answer only in monosyllables. All these details of where sheshould be seemed irrelevant to the one burning point, --what will you donow, in the face of this verdict of guilt? At last the meal was over, andthey were alone. Isabelle, without looking up, said:--

"I saw the verdict in the papers, John. "

He made no reply, and she cried:--

"Tell me what you are going to do! We must talk about it. "

"The case will be appealed, as I told you before. "

"Yes! ... But the fine, the--"

She stopped for lack of the right word. He made a gesture of indifferenceat the word "fine, " but still waited. 

"John, is it true what the judge said, what the district attorney said, about--the officials getting money from those coal companies?"

She colored, while Lane eyed her and at last replied irritably:--

"The officers of the road invested their money, like most men, where theysaw fit, I suppose. "

"But does that mean they take advantage of their position with the road tomake money--improperly?"

"That depends on what you call 'improperly. '"

Her mind leaped clear of this evasion; she cried out:--

"But why did you want to make money--so much money? You had a large salary, and I could have had all the money we wanted from my father!"

Her husband looked at her almost contemptuously, as if her remark was toochildish for serious consideration. It was axiomatic that all men who hadthe power desired to make what money they could. 

"I certainly never cared to live on your father's money, " he retorted. 

"But we didn't need so much--"

"I wonder if you realize just how much we have seemed to need in one way oranother since we moved East?"

There it was staring her in the face, her share in the responsibility forthis situation! She had known only vaguely what they were spending, andalways considered that compared with women of her class she was notextravagant, in fact economical. 

"But, John, if I had only known--"

"Known what?" he demanded harshly. "Known that I was making money in stocksand bonds, like other men, like your father's friend, Senator Thomas, likeMorton, and Beals himself? Isabelle, you seem to have the comprehension ofa child! ... Do you think that such men live on salaries?"

"But why weren't the others indicted and tried?"

He hesitated a moment, his face flushing, and then there burst out thetruth. She had unwittingly touched the sore spot in his mind. 

"Because there had to be some sort of scapegoat to satisfy public clamor!The deals went through my office mostly; but the road is behind me, ofcourse.... They all shared, from Beals down. "

At last they were at the heart of the matter, he challenging her criticism, she frightened at the cloudy places in her husband's soul that she hadpenetrated, when a servant interrupted them, saying that Lane was wanted atthe telephone. While he was out of the room, Isabelle thought swiftly. Whatwould be the next word? Was it not better to accept his excuse? "They haveall done as I have done, men who are honored and respected. It isuniversal, what we do, and it is only an accident that I am put up as atarget for public abuse!" If she persisted in knowing all, she would merelydivide herself farther from her husband, who would resent her attitude. Andwhat right had she to examine and judge, when for all these years she hadgone her way and let him go his?

The blood beat in her ears, and she was still uncertain when Lane returned. His face had lost its color of passion, and his voice was subdued as hesaid:--

"Steve has met with an accident, --a serious one. "

"Steve!" Isabelle cried. 

"Yes; I think we had better go out there at once. Alice got some one totelephone for her. "

The account of the accident had been in that late edition of the pennypaper which Isabelle had seen, but it had been crowded into the second pageby the magnitude of the Atlantic and Pacific sensation. Lane bought thepapers, and they read them on their way to Bryn Mawr. Johnston had been rundown as he was going to the station early that Saturday afternoon. It was aheavy motor, running at reduced yet lively speed through the crowded citystreet. A woman with a child by the hand had stepped from the sidewalk tohail an approaching street-car, without noticing the automobile that wasbearing down behind her. Steve had seen their danger, rushed for the womanand pulled her and the child out of the way, --got them clear of the motor. But he was struck, a glancing blow in the back, as the motor sheered off. He had been taken to a drug-store, and reviving quickly had insisted ongoing home. The driver of the car, apparently a humane person, had waitedwith a notable display of decency and taken the injured man with the doctorwho had attended him at the drug-store to Bryn Mawr.... The reporter forthe penny paper had done his best by the accident, describing the thrillingrescue of the woman and child, the unavoidable blow to the rescuer, withall the vividness of his art. 

"It was a brave act, " Lane remarked, folding up the sheet and putting it inhis pocket.... 

As soon as they entered, Alice came down to them from the sick room. Shewas pale, but she seemed to Isabelle wonderfully composed and calm, --thesteady balance-wheel of the situation. When Steve had first reached home, he had apparently not been badly off, she told them. He had insisted onwalking upstairs and said that he would be quite right after he had laiddown a little while. So the doctor went back to the city in the motor. Butat dinner time, Alice, going into his room, found him breathing heavily, almost unconscious, and his voice had become so thick that she couldscarcely make out what he was saying. She had summoned their own doctor, and he had called another from the city. They feared cerebral trouble, dueto a lesion of the spinal chord; but nothing could be certainly determinedyet. 

"Something seems to be on his mind, " Alice said in conclusion. "I thought Imade out your name, John; so I had you telephoned for. I don't know that itwill do any good, but it may quiet him to see you. "

While Lane was upstairs, Alice talked on in the composed, capable, self-contained manner that she usually had, --merely speaking a triflefaster, with occasional pauses, as if she were listening for a sound fromSteve's room. But the house was painfully still. 

... "You see, " she explained, "Steve doesn't move quickly, --is too heavyand slow. I suppose that was why he didn't succeed in getting out of theway himself. The car wasn't really going fast, not over eight miles anhour, the chauffeur said.... But Steve saved the woman and child, --theywould have been killed. "

He had saved the woman and child, --chance strangers in thestreet, --possibly at the cost of his life or the use of his limbs. Therewas an ironical note in the tragedy. This stout man with the character inhis slow organism that could accomplish great things--this hero ofAlice's--had stepped off the sidewalk to save the life of a carelesspasser-by, and risked his own life, the happiness of his wife and children, in just that little way. 

"It was so like Steve, --to realize but one point, _their_ danger, " Alicecontinued with a proud smile. And Isabelle could see the dull, large-framedman, his head slightly bent, plodding forward in the stream of home-goerson the pavement, suddenly lift his head, and without a moment's hesitationstep out into the path of danger.... 

When Isabelle and John left the house late in the evening, he said gravely, "The doctors don't think there is much chance for him. "

"He will die!" Isabelle gasped, thinking of Alice, who had smiled at themcheerily when they went out of the door. 

"Perhaps worse than that, --complete paralysis, --the lower limbs areparalyzed now. "

"How perfectly awful!"

"I think he knew me. He grasped my hand so hard it hurt, and I could makeout my name. But I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. "

"Do you suppose it could be the mortgage?"

"Very likely. I must attend to that matter at once. "

They were silent on the way back to the city, each buried in thought. Theverdict, which had stirred them so deeply a few hours before, had alreadysunk into the background of life, overshadowed by this nearer, more humancatastrophe. 

"I shall have to go on to New York to-morrow, for a few days at least, "Lane said as they entered the house. 

"I will stay here, of course, " Isabelle replied, "and you can bring Mollyand the governess back with you. I will telegraph them. " It was all easilydecided, what had seemed perplexing earlier in the evening, when she hadbeen occupied merely with herself and John. "I can be of some help to Aliceany way, and if he should die--"

"Yes, " Lane agreed. "That is best. I will be back in a week. " And he addedcasually, announcing a decision arrived at on the way to the city:--

"I'll have my lawyer look up that mortgage. You can tell Alice to-morrowand try to get Steve to understand, so that he will have it off his mind assoon as possible. "

Her heart responded with a glow. Yes, that was the very thing to do! Shehad money enough to help them, but she did not know just what to do. It waslike John, this sure, quick way of seeing the one thing to be doneimmediately and doing it. It was like him, too, to do generous things. Howmany poor boys and young men he had helped along rough roads in theirstruggle up, --given them the coveted chance in one way and another, withoutostentation or theory, simply in the human desire to help another with thatsurplus strength which had given him his position of vantage. 

"I will write the note to Mather now, telling him what to do about themortgage, " he continued in his methodical, undemonstrative manner. As hesat down at the desk and drew pen and paper towards him, he paused amoment. "You will see to the nurses, --they should have two. The doctors maydecide on an operation. Have the best men, of course. "

He struck pen into the paper with his broad, firm stroke. Isabelle stoodwatching him, her heart beating strangely, and suddenly leaning over himshe kissed his forehead, then fled swiftly to the door. 

CHAPTER LXXV

Isabelle waited in the carriage outside the station for her husband andMolly. The New York train was late as usual. She had driven in from BrynMawr, where she had spent most of the ten days since Lane's departure. Shewas steeped now in the atmosphere of that suburban house covered by theApril mist, with the swelling bushes and trees all about it. There had beenan operation, decided on after consultation with the eminent surgeons thatIsabelle had summoned. After the operation hope had flickered up, as thesick man breathed more easily, was able to articulate a few intelligiblewords, and showed an interest in what was going on about him. But it hadwaned again to-day, and when Isabelle left, Alice was holding her husband'slarge hand, talking to him cheerfully, but there was no response.... Howwonderful she was, --Alice! That picture of her filled Isabelle's thought asshe waited in the carriage. Never a tear or a whimper all these anxiousdays, always the calm, buoyant voice, even a serene smile and little jokeat her husband's bedside, such as she had used to enliven him with, --anything to relax his set, heavy features. "How she loves him!" thoughtIsabelle, almost with pain. 

When she left that afternoon, Alice had sent a grateful message to John. "He will come out to-morrow if he can?" she had asked. She knew now thatthe hours were numbered without being told so by the doctors. And never atear, a self-pitying cry! Oh, to be like that, --sturdy in heart andsoul, --with that courage before life, that serene confidence in face of theworst fate can offer! Alice was of the faith of Renault. 

Lane came down the platform, followed by Molly and her governess. As heraised his hat in greeting, Isabelle noticed the deep lines at the cornersof his mouth, and the line above his broad, straight nose. When they werein the carriage, she realized that her husband had been living these tendays in another world from the one she had inhabited, and in spite of hisquestions about Steve and Alice, he was preoccupied, still held by theanxieties and perplexities of his business in New York, still in the closegrip of his own affairs, his personal struggle. So she talked with Molly, who was almost articulately joyful over her escape from the country, at thesight of streets and motor carriages. 

As they were going to dinner a servant brought word that a reporter wishedto speak to John. Usually Lane refused to see reporters outside his office, and there turned them over to his secretary, who was skilled in the gentleart of saying inoffensive nothings in many words. But to her surprise Johnafter slight hesitation went into the library to see the man, and it was along half hour before he returned to his dinner. The evening was anotherone of those torturing periods when Isabella's heart was full and yet mustbe carefully repressed lest she make a false step. After a little talkabout Molly, her mother, the Johnstons, Lane turned to open his mail thathad been sent up for him from the office. Isabelle left him absorbed inthis task, but she could not sleep, and when at last she heard him go tohis room, she followed him. Laying her hands on his arms, she looked at himpleadingly, longing now not so much to know the facts, to reason and judge, as to understand, perhaps comfort him, --at least to share the trouble withhim. 

"Can't you tell me all about it, John?"

"About what?" he demanded dryly, his dislike of effusiveness, emotionalism, showing in the glitter of his gray eyes. 

"Tell me what is troubling you! I want to share it, --all of it. What hashappened?"

He did not answer at once. There was an evident struggle to overcome hishabitual reserve, the masculine sense of independence in the conduct of hisaffairs. Also, there was between them her prejudice, the woman'sinsufficient knowledge, and the barrier of the long years of aloofness. Butat last, as if he had reflected that she would have to know soon in anycase, he said dryly:--

"The Board has voted to relieve me of my duties as general manager oftraffic. I am assigned to St. Louis for the present, but the duties are notspecified. A polite hint--which I have taken!"

"Did Mr. Beals do that?"

"Beals went to Europe on his vacation when the coal cases first came up.... Besides, it would have made no difference. I think I see in it the finehand of our good friend the Senator, --smug-faced old fox!"

Isabelle felt how much this action by the directors had stung him, howseverely he was suffering. 

"It was ... Because of the verdict?"

"Oh, the general mess, the attacks in the press, complaints fromstockholders! They want to get under cover, show the public they arecleaning house, I suppose. They thought to shelve me until the row fizzlesout, then drop me. But I am not the sort of man to sit around as a willingsacrifice, to pose for the papers as a terrible example. They will know, to-morrow!"

Isabelle understood why he had consented to see the reporter. Hitherto, hehad refused to speak, to make any public defence of himself or comment onthe trial. But after this action on the part of the directors, after thelong smouldering hours on the train, he had decided to speak, --at length. It would not be pleasant reading in certain quarters near Wall Street, whathe said, but it would make good copy. 

Biting fiercely at his cigar, which had gone out, he struck a match sharplyand talked on:--

"I am not a back number yet. There is not another road in the country thathas shown such results, such gain in traffic, as the A. And P. Since I wasput in charge of traffic five years ago. There are others who know it, too, in New York. I shan't have to twiddle my thumbs long when my resignation ispublished. The prejudiced trial out here won't stand in the way. "

In the storm of his mood, it was useless to ask questions. Isabelle merelymurmured:--

"Too bad, too bad, --I am so sorry, John!"

Instead of that dispassionate groping for the exact truth, justice betweenher husband and the public, that she had first desired, she was simplycompassionate for his hurt pride. Innocent or guilty, what right had she tojudge him? Even if the worst of what had been charged was literally true, had she not abandoned him at the start, --left him to meet the problems ofthe modern battle as he could, --to harden his soul against all large andgenerous considerations? Now when he was made the scapegoat for the sins ofothers, for the sin of his race, too, --how could she sit and censure! Thetime would come for calm consideration between them. There was thatsomething in her heart which buoyed her above the present, above thedistress of public condemnation, --even disgrace and worldly failure. Comingclose to him again, she said with ringing conviction:--

"It can make no difference to you and me, John!"

He failed to see her meaning. 

"The money doesn't matter, --it isn't that, of course. We shan't starve!"

"I didn't mean the money!"

"Sensible people know what it amounts to, --only the mob yaps. "

"I didn't mean criticism, either, " she said softly. 

"Well, that New York crowd hasn't heard the last of me yet!"

His lips shut tight together. The spirit of fight, of revenge, was aroused. It was useless to talk further. She drew his arm about her. 

"You will go out to see Steve to-morrow, won't you?"

"Yes, of course, --any time in the afternoon. "

She kissed him and went back to her room. 

One precept out of Renault's thin book of life was hard toacquire, --Patience. But it must be acquired, --the power to abide the timecalmly, until the right moment should come. The morrows contain so manyreversals of the to-days!

CHAPTER LXXXVI

It was probable that the dying man did not recognize Lane, though it washard to say what dim perception entered through the glazing eyes andpenetrated the clouding brain. The children had been about the room all themorning, Alice said, and from the way the father clung to Jack's hand shethought there still was recognition. But the sense of the outer world wasfast fading now. The doctor was there, by way of kindly solicitude, --hecould do nothing; and when the Lanes came he went away, whispering to Johnas he left, "Not long now. " Alice had sent away the nurse, as she had thenight before, refusing to lose these last minutes of service. She toldIsabelle that in the early morning, while she was watching and had thoughtSteve was asleep from his quieter breathing, she had found his eyes restingon her with a clear look of intelligence, and then kneeling down with herface close to his lips he had whispered thickly. Her eyes were stillshining from those last lover's words in the night.... 

When John went back to the city, Isabelle stayed on, taking luncheon withthe nurses and little Belle. Neighbors came to the door to inquire, toleave flowers. These neighbors had been very kind, Alice had said often, taking the boys to their homes and doing the many little errands of thehousehold. "And I hardly knew them to bow to! It's wonderful how peoplespring up around you with kindness when trouble comes!"... 

Meanwhile, overhead the life was going out, the strong man yielding slowlyto the inevitable. Twilight came on, the doctor returned and went awayagain, and the house became absolutely still. Once Isabelle crept upstairsto the door of the sick room. Alice was holding Steve's head, with one armunder his pillow, looking, --looking at him with devouring eyes! ... Gradually the breathing grew fainter, at longer intervals, the eyelids fellover the vacant eyes, and after a little while the nurse, passing Isabelleon the stairs, whispered that it was over, --the ten days' losing fight. Presently Alice came out of the room, her eyes still shining strangely, andsmiled at Isabelle. 

When they went out the next afternoon, there was in the house that drearyhuman pause created by the fact of death, --pause without rest. Flowersscented the air, and people moved about on tiptoe, saying nothings inhushed voices, and trying to be themselves. 

But in the dim room above, where Alice took them, there was peace andnaturalness. The dead man lay very straight beneath the sheet, his fleshybody shrunken after its struggle to its bony stature. Isabelle had alwaysthought Steve a homely man, --phlegmatic and ordinary in feature. She hadoften said, "How can Alice be so romantic over old Steve!" But as the deadman lay there, wasted, his face seemed to have taken on a grave and austeredignity, an expression of resolute will in the heavy jaw, the high brow, the broad nostril, as though the steadfast soul within, so prosaicallymuffled in the flesh, had at the last spoken out to those nearest him themeaning of his life, graving it on his dead face. Lane, caught by thishigh, commanding note of the lifeless features, as of one who, thoughremoved by infinite space, still spoke to the living, gazed steadily at thedead man. And Isabelle felt the awe of his presence; here was one who couldspeak with authority of elemental truths.... 

Alice, her arms resting on the foot-rail of the bed, was leaning forward, looking with eyes still shining at her husband, her lover, her mate. Andher lips parted in a little smile. Large and strong and beautiful, in thefull tide of conscious life, she contemplated her dead comrade. 

A feeling that she was in the presence of mystery--the mystery of perfecthuman union--stole through Isabelle. The woman standing there at the feetof her dead man had had it all, --all the experience that woman can have. Had she not loved this man, received his passion, borne his children, fought by his side the fight of life, --and above all and beyond all elsecherished in her the soul of the man, the sacred part of him, that beautyunknown to others hitherto, now written plain for all to see on his face!And her lighted eyes seemed to say, 'What place is there here for grief?Even though I am left in mid life, to struggle on alone with my children, without his help, yet have I not had it all? Enough to warm my heart andsoul through the empty years that must come!'... 

Tears dropped from Isabelle's eyes, and convulsively she grasped the handthat rested beside her, as though she would say, 'To lose all this, whatyou two have had, how can you bear it!' Alice bent down over hertear-stained face and kissed her, --with a little gesture towards Steve, murmuring "I have had so much!"

 * * * * *

They walked slowly back to the city in the warm April night. Neither hadspoken since they left the little house, until Isabelle said with a deepsolemnity:--

"It was perfect--that!"

"Yes! Steve was a good man, and Alice loved him. "

Each knew what lay behind these commonplace words in the heart of theother. These two, Steve and Alice, in spite of hardship, the dull grind oftheir restricted existence, the many children, the disappointments, had hadsomething--a human satisfaction--that _they_ had missed--forever; and asthey walked on through the deserted streets silently, side by side, theysaw that now it could never be for them. It was something that missed oncein its perfection was missed for all time. However near they might come tobe, however close in understanding and effort, they could never know themystery of two who had lived together, body and soul, and together hadsolved life. 

For mere physical fidelity is but a small part of the comradeship ofmarriage. 

CHAPTER LXXVII

Miss Marian Lane was such a thorough cosmopolite that she had nodiscernible affection for any place. She referred to Central Park, to theFarm, to the Price house in St. Louis, to Grosvenor with equal indifferenceand impartiality, as she might later to London or Paris or Rome. She didnot even ask her mother where they were to spend the summer. That there wasa Park in St. Louis, as in all properly created cities, she had confidence, because she asked Miss Joyce to take her there the day after her arrival. Isabelle's own childhood had been strongly colored by places, --the oldhouse in K Street, this ugly Victorian mansion, and especially the Farm. Places had meant so much to her in her youth, her feelings reflecting theirphysical atmosphere, that they had been more vivid than persons. But Mollywas equally content anywhere. She needed merely Miss Joyce, a Park, andpretty clothes. 

Clothes, indeed, were the only subject that aroused a semblance of passionin Molly's sedate soul. "Oh, we shall go shopping, mamma!" she exclaimedwith the first real animation Isabelle had seen in her, when hergrandmother remarked that Molly had outgrown all her dresses this winter. They were sitting in the large front bedroom that the Colonel and his wifehad always occupied. Mrs. Price had just returned from the Springs, and wasalready talking of spending the summer in Europe. Since the Colonel's deathshe had become a great globe-trotter, indefatigably whisking hither andthither with her reliable maid. It seemed as if after all these years offaithful economy and routine living, the suppressed restlessness of herrace, which had developed at an earlier age in Isabelle, was revengingitself upon the old lady. "Mother's travels" had become a householdjoke.... 

"Can't we go to-day? Miss Joyce and I saw some lovely things at Roseboro's, mother!" Molly urged, jumping up from the lounge, where she had beentelling her grandmother about Grosvenor. "Oh, yes, grandmother, " Isabellehad heard her say in a listless voice, "we had a pleasant time inGrosvenor. Miss Joyce took me coasting with James Pole. And we had sleighrides. Miss Joyce was afraid to drive the horses, so we did not go exceptwhen Mrs. Pole took us.... Aunt Margaret was very nice. Miss Joyce gave usall dancing lessons. "... 

It was always Miss Joyce this and Miss Joyce that, since Molly's return, until Isabelle had impatiently concluded that the faithful Englishgoverness with her narrow character had completely ironed out thepersonality of her charge. As she listened to Molly's conversation with hergrandmother, she resolved to get rid of Miss Joyce, in order to escapehearing her name if for no other reason. 

"I suppose you'll wait to get her clothes until you are back in New York, "the practical Mrs. Price observed; "they are so much cheaper and moretasteful there. The stores here don't seem to be what they were, --evenRoseboro's can't compare with Altman's and Best's for children's things. "

"We may not be in New York this spring, " Isabelle replied, waking from hermeditations on the subject of Miss Joyce and her daughter. "John's plansare uncertain--and I don't care to go without him. "

"You can try Roseboro's, then; but I don't believe you will be satisfied. "

"Oh, mamma, can't we go in the motor now!"

And Molly ran to Miss Joyce to dress herself for the expedition. 

Isabelle had scrutinized her little daughter with fresh interest the fewdays she had been with her. Molly had always been an unresponsive childsince she was a baby. In spite of her beautiful pink coloring, carefullypreserved by country life, she was scarcely more alive than an automaton. Whatever individuality she had was so deeply buried that her mother couldnot discover it. Why was it? Why was she so colorless? She had been "movedabout" a good deal, like many American children, according to theexigencies of the family, --to St. Louis, the Farm, the New York hotel, theNew York house, Europe, Grosvenor, --a rapid succession of panoramas for onesmall mind to absorb. But Molly had never seemed disturbed by it. One placewas as good as another, --one set of children, provided they had nicemanners and were well dressed, as agreeable as any other. If she were putdown in a Pasadena hotel, she found playmates, judiciously selected by MissJoyce, of course, who supervised their games. In all the changes of sceneIsabelle had been most scrupulous in her care for diet, exercises, regime, and as long as the child seemed content and physically well she had seen noharm in taking her about from scene to scene. Now Isabelle had her doubts. 

The little girl came downstairs, followed by the capable Miss Joyce, whowas brushing out a fold in her white broadcloth coat and arranging a curl, and looked in at her mother's room, with a pretty little smile and agesture of the fingers she had copied from some child. "All ready, mamma, --shall we wait for you in the motor?" As she passed on, followed byMiss Joyce, --the figure of dainty young plutocracy and hermentor, --Isabelle murmured, "I wonder if it has been good for her to moveabout so much!"

Mrs. Price, a literal old lady, took up the remark:--

"Why, she looks healthy. Miss Joyce takes excellent care of her. I thinkyou are very fortunate in Miss Joyce, Isabelle. "

"I don't mean her health, mother!"

"She is as forward as most children of her age, --she speaks French veryprettily, " the grandmother protested. "She has nice manners, too. "

Isabelle saw the futility of trying to explain what she meant to hermother, and yet the old lady in her next irrelevant remark touched the veryheart of the matter. 

"Children have so much attention these days, --what they eat and do iswatched over every minute. Why, we had a cat and a dog, and a doll or two, the kitchen and the barn to run about in--and that was all. Parents weretoo busy to fuss about their children. Boys and girls had to fit into thehome the best they could. "

There was a home to fit into! A cat and a dog, a few dolls, and the kitchenand the barn to run about in, --that was more than Molly Lane with all heropportunities had ever had. 

"There weren't any governesses or nurses; but we saw more of our father andmother, naturally, " the old lady continued. "Only very rich people hadnurses in those times. "

The governess was a modern luxury, provided to ease the conscience of lazyor incompetent mothers, who had "too much to do" to be with their children. Isabelle knew all the arguments in their favor. She remembered BessieFalkner's glib defence of the governess method, when she had wanted tostretch Rob's income another notch for this convenience, --"If a mother isalways with her children, she can't give her best self either to them or toher husband!" Isabelle had lived enough since then to realize that thisvague "best self" of mothers was rarely given to anything but distraction. 

Isabelle had been most conscientious as a mother, spared no thought orpains for her child from her birth. The trained nurse during the first twoyears, the succession of carefully selected governesses since, the lessons, the food, the dentist, the doctors, the clothes, the amusements, --all hadbeen scrupulously, almost religiously, provided according to the bestmodern theories. Nothing had been left to chance. Marian should be aparagon, physically and morally. Yet, her mother had to confess, the childbored her, --was a wooden doll! In the scientifically sterilized atmospherein which she had lived, no vicious germ had been allowed to fasten itselfon the young organism, and yet thus far the product was tasteless. PerhapsMolly was merely a commonplace little girl, and she was realizing it forthe first time. Isabelle's maternal pride refused to accept such adepressing answer, and moreover she did not believe that any young thing, any kitten or puppy, could be as colorless, as little vital as theexquisite Miss Lane. She must find the real cause, study her child, livewith her awhile. The next generation, apparently, was as inscrutable amanuscript to read as hers had been to the Colonel and her mother. Herparents had never understood all the longings and aspirations that hadfilled her fermenting years, and now she could not comprehend the dumbnessof her child. Those fermenting years had gone for nothing so far asteaching her to understand the soul of her child. The new ferment was of adifferent composition, it seemed.... 

 * * * * *

Isabelle was to find that her daughter had developed certain tastes besidesa love for clothes and a delight in riding in motor-cars.... Molly was inthe library after luncheon, absorbed in an illustrated story of a popularmagazine, which Isabelle glanced over while Miss Joyce made ready hercharge to accompany her mother to the Johnstons'. The story was "innocent, ""clean reading" enough, --thin pages of smart dialogue between prettilydressed young men and athletic girls, the puppy loves of the youngrich, --mere stock fiction-padding of the day. But the picture of life--thesuggestion to the child's soft brain? Isabelle tossed the magazine into thewaste basket, and yawned. Molly had left it with a sigh. 

On the way to the Bryn Mawr house Isabelle tried to explain to Molly whathad happened to the Johnstons through the loss of the father, telling herwhat a good man Steve was, the sorrow the family had to bear. Mollylistened politely. 

"Yes, mother!" And she asked, "Are they very poor?" An innocent remark thatirritated Isabelle unreasonably. 

The children played together downstairs while Isabelle discussed with Alicesome business matters. It had not sounded very lively below, and when themothers came down they found Molly and Belle sitting on opposite sides ofthe little parlor, looking stiffly at each other. The boys had slipped offfor more stirring adventures outdoors, which Molly had refused to join, asshe was making a formal call with her mother. In the motor going home Mollyremarked: "The boys haven't good manners. Belle seems a nice girl. Shehasn't been anywhere and can't talk. That was a very homely dress she hadon; don't you think so? Does she have to wear dresses like that? Can't yougive her something prettier, mamma?"

Isabelle, who thought her god-daughter an interesting child, full ofindependence and vitality in spite of her shyness, wondered, "Is Molly justa stick, or only a little snob?"

Molly was sitting very gracefully in her grandmother's limousine, ridingthrough the parks and avenues with the air of a perfect little ladyaccustomed to observe the world from the cushioned seat of a brougham ormotor-car. Catching sight of a bill board with the announcement of apopular young actress's coming engagement, she remarked:--

"Miss Daisy May is such a perfect dear, don't you think, mamma? Couldn'tMiss Joyce take me to see her act next Saturday afternoon? It's a perfectlynice play, you know. "

Repressing a desire to shake her daughter, Isabelle replied: "I'll take youmyself, Molly. And shan't we invite Delia Conry? You know she is at schoolhere and has very few friends. "

"Oh!" Molly said thoughtfully. "Delia is so ordinary. I should like to askBeatrice Lawton, --Miss Joyce knows her governess.... Or if we must be goodto some one, we might take Belle. "

"We'll take them both. "

"I don't think Beatrice would enjoy Belle, " her daughter objected afterfurther reflection. 

"Well, I shall ask Delia and Belle, then, to go with me alone!"

(She had looked up the Conry child at the school where Vickers had senther, and had arranged to have her brother's small estate settled on thegirl, as she felt he would have wished. Delia, whose mother had never beenheard from, was a forlorn little object and Isabelle pitied her. )

When her temporary irritation with Molly had passed, she saw there wasnothing unnatural in the child's attitude. Probably she was a little snob. Most children brought up as Molly had been, most of her friends, werelittle snobs. Their governesses taught them snobbery, unconsciously; theirdomestic habits taught them snobbery. 

Isabelle resolved more firmly that she should dispense with the excellentMiss Joyce. A beginning very far down would have to be made, if she were toreach the individuality of this perfectly nurtured modern child of hers. There was nothing bad about Molly; she was irritatingly blameless. But whatshe lacked was appalling! At eighteen she would be unendurable. 

And the mother had no warm feeling, no impelling affection for herdaughter, any more than the child had for her. That lack would make it allthe harder to do what must be done. Here, again, as with her husband, shemust begin to pay for all the years that she had shirked her job, --for thesake of "her own life, " her intellectual emancipation and growth, --shirked, to be sure, in the most conscientious and enlightened modern manner. 

For nobody could call Miss Lane a neglected child. 

CHAPTER LXXVIII

It would be very simple for Mrs. Price to provide Alice with a comfortableincome, --the Colonel would have done so; and when Isabelle suggested it toher mother after the funeral of Steve, the old lady agreed, though she wasnot of a philanthropic nature and recalled the fact that the marriage hadbeen a foolish one. But Alice flatly refused the arrangement. She had beentrained to work; she was not too old to find something to do, and she hadalready taken steps to secure a place as matron in a hospital. "I amstrong, " she said to Isabelle. "Steve has left it for me to do, --all of it. And I want to show him that I can do it. I shall be happier!"

John had a better comprehension of her feelings and of the situation thaneither Isabelle or her mother. "Alice is an able woman, " he had said; "shewill not break down, --she is not that kind. And she'll be happier working. "

So he took care of her little life insurance money. He also obtained ascholarship in a technical school for the oldest boy, and undertook to fitthe second one for college, as he showed studious tendencies. Isabellewould look after Belle's education. In all these practical details ofreadjusting the broken family, John Lane was more effective than his wife, giving generously of his crowded hours to the Johnston affairs, ever readyto do all that might be done without hurting the widow's pride and vigorouswill. 

And this, as Isabelle knew, came in the days of his greatest personalperplexity. His resignation as third vice-president had been accepted afterprotest, negotiations, and then had elicited a regretful communication tothe press (emanating from the Senator's office) of an eulogistic nature, concluding with the delicately phrased suggestion that "Mr. Lane's untiringdevotion to his work necessitates his taking a rest from all business caresfor the present. It is understood that he contemplates a long vacation inEurope. "

John handed the paper to Isabelle with an ironical smile. 

"You see we are to go abroad, --the usual thing! That's the Senator's craftyhand. He wants everything decently smooth. "

But the public no longer cared. The coal cases had gone up to a highercourt on appeal, and when the final decision was handed down, the "street"would be interested not in the question of John Lane's guilt or innocence, but in the more important question of whether the Supreme Court "would backup the President's campaign against capital. "

Meanwhile, there was none of the social stigma attached to the verdictagainst her husband that Isabelle had resolutely expected. As soon as itwas known that the Lanes were established in the city for the spring, theirfriends sought them out and they were invited to dine more than Isabellecared for. In their class, as she quickly perceived from jesting referencesto the trial, such legal difficulties as John's were regarded as merely thedisagreeable incidents of doing business in a socialistic age. Lane, farfrom being "down and out, " was considered in the industrial and railroadworld a strong man rather badly treated by a weak-kneed board of directors, who had sought to save themselves from trouble by sacrificing an ableservant to the public storm. No sooner was his resignation published thanhe received an offer of the presidency of a large transit company in themiddle West. While he was considering this offer, he was approached byrepresentatives of another great railroad, which, though largely owned bythe same "interests" that controlled the Atlantic and Pacific, wasgenerally supposed to be a rival. Lane was too valuable a man to be lost tothe railroad army. The "interests" recognized in him a powerful instrument, trained from boyhood for their purposes, --one "who knew how to getbusiness. " The offer flattered Lane, and soothed that sore spot in hisinner consciousness. He saw himself reinstated in his old world, with aprospect of crossing swords with his old superiors in a more than secondaryposition. 

Isabelle knew all about this offer. She and her husband talked togethermore freely than they had ever done before. The experiences of the pastweeks, --Steve's death, the planning for Alice's future, as well as theemotional result of the trial--had brought them nearer an understanding. Lane had begun to realize a latent aptitude in his wife for grasping theessential matters of business, --investments, risks, corporation management. She understood far more than the distinction between stock and bond, whichis supposedly the limit of woman's business intelligence. As the warm Maydays came on they took long rides into the fresh country, talking over theendless detail of affairs, --her money, her mother's money, the Colonel'strust funds, the Johnstons' future, the railroad situation, --all that JohnLane had hitherto carried tightly shut in his own mind. 

And thus Isabelle began to comprehend the close relation between what iscalled "business" and the human matters of daily life for every individualin this complex world. There was not simply a broad mark between right andwrong, --dramatic trials; but the very souls of men and women were involvedin the vast machine of labor and profit. 

She was astonished to discover the extent of her husband's interests, hispersonal fortune, which had grown amazingly during these last ten fat yearsof the country's prosperity. 

"Why, you don't have to take any position!"

"Yes, we could afford to make that European trip the Board so kindlyindicated. "

"We _might_ go abroad, " she said thoughtfully. 

A few years before she would have grasped the chance to live in Europeindefinitely. Now she found no inclination in her spirit for this solution. 

"It isn't exactly the time to leave home, " her husband objected; "there issure to be a severe panic before long. All this agitation has unsettledbusiness, and the country must reap the consequences. We could go for a fewmonths, perhaps. "

"It wouldn't be good for Molly. "

And though she did not say it, it would not be good for him to leave thestruggle for any length of time. Once out of the game of life, for which hehad been trained like an athlete, he would degenerate and lose his peculiarpower. And yet she shrank unaccountably from his reentering the old life, with the bitter feeling in his heart he now had. It meant their living inNew York, for one thing, and a growing repugnance to that huge, squirming, prodigal hive had come over her. Once the pinnacle of her ambitions, now itseemed sordid, hectic, unreal. Yet she was too wise to offer herobjections, to argue the matter, any more than to open the personal woundof his trial and conviction. Influence, at least with a man of John Lane'sfibre, must be a subtle, slow process, depending on mutual confidence, comprehension. And she must first see clearly what she herself knew to bebest. So she listened, waiting for the vision which would surely come. 

In these business talks her mind grasped more and more the issues ofAmerican life. She learned to recognize the distinction between theofficials of corporations and the control behind, --the money power. Thereemerged into view something of a panorama of industry, organized on modernlines, --the millions of workers in the industrial armies; the infinitegradations of leadership in these armies, and finally far off in thedistance, among the canons of the skyscrapers in the great cities, the Mindof it all, the Control, the massed Capital. There were the Marshals'quarters! Even the chiefs of great corporations were "little people"compared with their real employers, the men who controlled capital. Andinto that circle of intoxicating power, within its influence, she felt thather husband was slowly moving--would ultimately arrive, if successcame, --at the height of modern fame. Men did not reach the Marshals'quarters with a few hundred thousands of dollars, nor with a few millions, with savings and inheritances and prudent thrift. They must have tens ofmillions at their command. And these millions came through alliances, manipulations, deals, by all sorts of devices whereby money could be madeto spawn miraculously.... 

Meanwhile the worker earned his wage, and the minor officers theirsalaries--what had they to complain of?--but the pelf went up to theMarshals' camp, the larger part of it, --in this land where all were bornfree and equal. No! Isabelle shuddered at the spectacle of the bloody roadup to the camp, and prayed that her life might not be lived in anatmosphere of blood and alarms and noisy strife, even for the sake ofmillions of dollars and limitless Power. 

One evening in this period of dubitation Lane remarked casually:--

"Your father's friend, Pete Larrimore, came in to-day to see me. Do youremember him, Isabelle? The old fellow with the mutton-chop whiskers, whoused to send us bags of coffee from his plantation in Mexico. "

"Awful coffee, --we couldn't give it away!"

"He wanted to talk to me about a scheme he is interested in. It seems thathe has a lot of property in the southwest, Oklahoma and the TexasPanhandle, some of it very valuable. Among other things he has becomeinvolved in a railroad. It was started by some people who hadn't thecapital to carry it through, and now it begins nowhere and ends in the sameplace. Larrimore and his friends think they can get the capital to carrythe road south to the line and up north, and ultimately will sell itperhaps to one of the big systems.... They are looking for a man to buildit and push it through. "

"What did you say?" Isabelle demanded eagerly. 

"Oh, I just listened. If they can get the money, it might be successful. That country is growing fast.... It would be a chance for some young man towin his spurs, --hard work, though. "

He talked on, explaining the strategic position of the new road, itsrelation to rivals, the prospects of that part of the country, the presentcondition of the money market in respect to new enterprises; for Isabelleseemed interested. But when she interrupted with sudden energy, "Do it, John! Why don't _you_ take it?" he looked puzzled. 

"It is a young man's job, --pioneer work. "

"But you are young--we are young! And it would be something worth doing, pioneer work, building up a new country like that. "

"There's not much money in it, " he replied, smiling at her girlishenthusiasm, "and I am afraid not much fame. "

Not money, not the fame of the gladiator, the fame of the money power;merely the good report of a labor competently performed, the reward ofenergy and capacity--and the thing done itself. But to Isabelle thispioneer quality of the work appealed strongly. Her imagination expandedunder the idea. 

"I can see you living for the next ten years in a small Texas town!" hejested. "However, I suppose you wouldn't live out there. "

"But I should!" she protested. "And it is what I should like best of all, Ithink--the freedom, the open air, the new life!"

So from a merely casual suggestion that Lane had not thought worth seriousconsideration, there began to grow between them a new conception of theirfuture. And the change that these last weeks had brought was marked by thefreedom with which husband and wife talked not only about the future, butabout the past. Isabelle tried to tell her husband what had been going onwithin her at the trial, and since then. 

"I know, " she said, "that you will say I can't understand, that my feelingis only a woman's squeamishness or ignorance.... But, John, I can't bear tothink of our going back to it, living on in that way, the hard way ofsuccess, as it would be in New York. "

Lane looked at her narrowly. He was trying to account for this new attitudein his wife. That she would be pleased, or at least indifferent, at theprospect of returning to the East, to the New York life that she had alwayslonged for and apparently enjoyed, he had taken for granted. Yet in spiteof the fixed lines in which his nature ran and the engrossingpreoccupations of his interests, he had felt many changes in Isabelle sinceher return to St. Louis, --changes that he ascribed generally to theimprovement in her health, --better nerves, --but that he could notaltogether formulate. Perhaps they were the indirect result of herbrother's death. At any rate his wife's new interest in business, in hisaffairs, pleased him. He liked to talk things over with her.... 

Thus the days went steadily by towards the decision. Lane had promised hiswife to consider the Larrimore offer. One morning the cable brought thestartling news that the president of the Atlantic and Pacific had committedsuicide in his hotel room in Paris the evening before he was to sail forhome. "Bad health and nervous collapse, " was the explanation in thedespatch. But that a man of sixty-three, with a long record of honorablesuccess, a large fortune, no family troubles, should suddenly take his ownlife, naturally roused the liveliest amazement throughout the country. Nobody believed that the cable told the whole truth; but the real reasonsfor the desperate act were locked tight among the directors of the railroadcorporation and a few intimate heads of control--who know all. 

Lane read the news to Isabelle. It shook him perceptibly. He had knownFarrington Beals for years, ever since at the Colonel's suggestion he hadbeen picked out of the army of underlings and given his first chance. Isabelle remembered him even longer, and especially at her wedding with theSenator and her father. They were old family friends, the Bealses. 

"How terrible for Mrs. Beals and Elsie!" she exclaimed. "How could he havedone it! The family was so happy. They all adored him! And he was about toretire, Elsie told me when I saw her last, and they were all going aroundthe world in their yacht.... He couldn't have been very ill. "

"No, I am afraid that wasn't the only reason, " John admitted, walking toand fro nervously. 

He was thinking of all that the old man had done for him, his resentment athis chief's final desertion of him forgotten; of how he had learned hisjob, been trained to pull his load by the dead man, who had alwaysencouraged him, pushed him forward. 

"He went over for a little rest, you said. And he always went every yearabout this time for a vacation and to buy pictures. Don't you remember, John, what funny things he bought, and how the family laughed at him?"

"Yes, --I know. " He also knew that the president of the Atlantic and Pacifichad gone across the ocean "for his yearly vacation" just at the opening ofthe coal investigation to escape the scandal of the trial, and had notreturned at the usual time, although the financial world was unsettled. Andhe knew other things; for already clubs and inner offices had been buzzingwith rumors. 

"I am afraid that it is worse than it seems, " he said to his wife on hisreturn from the city that afternoon. "Beals was terribly involved. I hearthat a bank he was interested in has been closed.... He was tied upfast--in all sorts of ways!"

"John!" Isabelle cried, and paused. Did this old man's death mean anotherscandal, ruin for another family, and one she had known well, --disgrace, scandal, possibly poverty?

"Beals was always in the market--and this panic hit him hard; he was on thewrong side lately. "

It was an old story, not in every case with the same details, but horriblycommon, --a man of the finest possibilities, of sturdy character, rising upto the heights of ambition, then losing his head, playing the game wantonlyfor mere pride and habit in it, --his judgment giving way, but playing on, stumbling, grasping at this and that to stop his sliding feet, breaking theelementary laws! And finally, in the face of disaster, alone in a hotelroom the lonely old man--no doubt mentally broken by the strain--puttingthe pistol to his head with his shaking hand. And, afterwards, the debrisof his wreck would be swept aside to clear the road for others!

Farrington Beals was not a single case. In this time of money disturbance, suicide and dishonor were rife in the streets, revealing the rotten timberthat could not stand the strain of modern life, lived as it had been livedthe past ten years. It was not one blast that uprooted weak members of theforest, but the eating decay of the previous years, working at the heart ofmany lives. "The frantic egotism of the age!" Yes, and the divided souls, never at peace until death put an end to the strife at last, --too much forlittle bodies of nerve and tissue to stand, --the racking of divided wills, divided souls. 

"John!" Isabelle cried that night, after they had again talked over thetragedy; "let us go--go out there--to a new land!" She rose from the loungeand swept across the room with the energy of clear purpose--of Vision. "Letus put ourselves as far as possible out of this sort of thing! .... It willkill us both. Do it for my sake, even if you can't feel as I do!"

And then there poured forth all the story of these years, of their lifeapart, as she had come to see it the last months, in the remote andpeaceful hills, in the court-room, in the plain pathos of Steve's death andAlice's heroism, and now in this suicide, --all that had given her insightand made her different from what she had been, --all that revealed thecheapness of her old ideals of freedom, intellectual development, self-satisfaction, that cult of the ego, which she had pursued in sympathywith the age. Now she wished to put it away, to remove herself and herhusband, their lives together, outwardly as she had withdrawn herselfinwardly. And her husband, moved in spite of himself by her tense desire, the energy of her words, listened and comprehended--in part. 

"I have never been a real wife to you, John. I don't mean just my love forthat other man, when you were nobly generous with me. But before that, inother ways, in almost all ways that make a woman a wife, a real wife.... Now I want to be a real wife. I want to be with you in all things.... Youcan't see the importance of this step as I do. Men and women are different, always. But there is something within me, underneath, like an inner lightthat makes me see clearly now, --not conscience, but a kind of flame thatguides. In the light of that I see what a petty fool I have been. It allhad to be--I don't regret because it all had to be--the terrible waste, thesacrifice, " she whispered, thinking of Vickers. "Only now we must live, youand I together, --together live as we have never lived before!"

She held out her hands to him as she spoke, her head erect, and as hewaited, still tied by years of self-repression, she went to him and put herarms about him, drawing her to him, to her breast, to her eyes. Ten yearsbefore he had adored her, desired her passionately, and she had shrunk fromhim. Then life had come imperceptibly in between them; he had gone his way, she hers. Now she was offering herself to him. And she was more desirablethan before, more woman, --at last whole. The appeal that had never beenwholly stifled in the man still beat in his pulses for the woman. And theappeal never wholly roused in the woman by him reached out now for him; butan appeal not merely of the senses, higher than anything Cairy could rousein a woman, an appeal, limitless, of comradeship, purpose, wills. He kissedher, holding her close to him, realizing that she too held him in the innerplace of her being. 

"We will begin again, " he said. 

"Our new life--together!"

 * * * * *

And this is Influence, the work of one will upon another, sometimesapparent, dramatic, tragic; sometimes subtle, unknowable, speaking acrossdark gulfs. The meaning of that dead man's austere face, the howl ofjournalists on his uncovered trail, the old man dead in his hotel roomdisgraced, the deep current of purpose in his new wife, --all these and muchmore sent messages into the man's unyielding soul to change the atmospheretherein, to alter the values of things seen, to shape--at last--the will. For what makes an act? Filaments of nerve, some shadowy unknown process inbrain cells? These are but symbols for mystery! Life pressingmultifariously its changing suggestions upon the sentient organism prompts, at last, the act. But there is something deeper than the known in all thiswondrous complexity.... 

John Lane, the man of fact, the ordered efficient will, was dimly consciousof forces other than physical ones, beyond, --not recognizable asmotives, --self-created and impelling, nevertheless; forces welling up fromthe tenebrous spaces in the depths of his being, beneath conscious life. And at last, something higher than Judgment swayed the man. 

CHAPTER LXXIX

The private car Olympus had been switched for the day to a siding at thelittle town of Orano on the edge of the Texas upland. The party within--theLanes, Margaret and her children, and several men interested in the newrailroad--had been making a leisurely tour of inspection, passing throughthe fertile prairies and woodlands of Oklahoma, stopping often at thelittle towns that were springing up along the road, aiming south until theyhad reached the Panhandle. These September days the harvests were rich andheavy, covered with a golden haze of heat, --the sweat of earth'saccomplishment. The new soil was laden with its fruit. The men had beenamazed by the fertility, the force of the country. "Traffic, traffic, " Lanehad murmured enthusiastically, divining with his trained eye the enormouspossibilities of the land, the future for the iron highroad he was pushingthrough it. Traffic, --in other words, growth, business, human effort andhuman life, --that is the cosmic song that sings itself along the iron road. 

Margaret had said mockingly:--

"Wouldn't it do our New York friends a world of good to get out here once ayear and realize that life goes on, and very real life, outside the narrowshores of Manhattan!"

That was the illuminating thought which had come to them all in differentways during this slow progress from St. Louis south and west. This broadland of states had a vital existence, a life of its own, everywhere, notmerely in the great centres, the glutted metropolitan points. Men lived andworked, happily, constructively, in thousands and thousands of smallplaces, where the seaboard had sunk far beneath the eastern horizon. Lifewas real, to be lived vitally, as much here in prairie and plain asanywhere on the earth's surface. The feeling which had come to Isabelle onher westward journey in March--the conviction that each one counted, hadhis own terrestrial struggle, his own celestial drama, differing verylittle in importance from his neighbor's; each one--man, woman, orchild--in all the wonderful completeness of life throughout themillions--swept over her again here where the race was sowing new land. Andlying awake in the stillness of the autumn morning on the lofty plateau, asshe listened to the colored servants chaffing at their work, there came toher the true meaning of that perplexing phrase, which had sounded with themockery of empty poetry on the lips of the district attorney, --"All menborn free and equal. " Yes! in the realm of their spirits, in theirsouls, --the inner, moving part of them, "free and equal"! ... 

"It's the roof of the world!" Margaret said, as she jumped from the carplatform and looked over the upland, --whimsically recalling the name of apopular play then running in New York. 

An unawakened country, dry and untilled, awaiting the hand of the master, it lifted westward in colored billows of undulating land. Under the clearmorning sun it was still and fresh, yet untouched, untamed. 

"It _is_ the roof of the world, " she repeated, "high and dry andextraordinarily vast, --leading your eyes onward and upward to the heavens, with all the rest of the earth below you in the fog. How I should like tolive here always! If I were you, Isabelle, I should get your husband togive you a freight-car like those the gangs of track-layers use, with alittle stovepipe sticking out of one corner, and just camp down in ithere, --on the roof of the world. "

She lifted her thin, delicate face to the sun, reaching out her arms to ithungrily. 

"We must sleep out to-night under the stars, and talk--oh, much talk, outhere under the stars!"

During the past year at Grosvenor her frail body had strengthened, revived;she was now firm and vigorous. Only the deep eyes and the lines above themand about the mouth, the curve of the nostril and chin, showed as on afinely chased coin the subtle chiselling of life. And here in the uplands, in the great spaces of earth and sky, the elemental desire of her soulseemed at last wholly appeased, the longing for space and height and light, the longing for deeds and beauty and Peace. At last, after the false roads, the fret and rebellion, she had emerged into the upper air.... 

"How well the little man rides!" Isabelle remarked as the children went bythem on some ponies they had found. 

Margaret's face glowed with pride. 

"Yes, Ned has improved very fast. He will go to school with the othersnow.... The doctor has really saved his life--and mine, too, " she murmured. 

So the two slept out under the stars, as Margaret wished, with dottedheavens close above and vague space all about; and they talked into themorning of past years, of matters that meant too much to them both fordaylight speech. Isabelle spoke of Vickers, of the apparent waste of hislife. "I can see now, " she said, "that in going away with that woman as hedid he expressed the real soul of him, as he did in dying for me. He wasborn to love and to give, and the world broke him. But he escaped!" And shecould not say even to Margaret what she felt, --that he had laid it on herto express his defeated life. 

They spoke even of Conny. "You received the cards for her wedding?"Margaret asked. "The man is a stockbroker. She is turning her talents to anew field, --money. I hear the wedding was very smart, and they are to liveon Long Island, with a yacht and half a dozen motors. "

"I thought she would marry--differently, " Isabelle observed vaguely, recalling the last time she had seen Conny. 

"No! Conny knows her world perfectly, --that's her strength. And she knowsexactly what to take from it to suit her. She is a bronze Cleopatra withmodern variations. I think they ought to put her figure on the gold eaglesas the American Woman Triumphant, ruling her world. "

"And on the other side the figure of a Vampire, stacking at the souls ofmen. " ... 

And then they talked of the future, the New Life, as it would shape itselffor Isabelle and her husband, talked as if the earth were fresh and lifebut in the opening. 

"He may do something else than this, " Isabelle said. "He has immense power. But I hope it will always be something outside the main wheels of industry, as Mr. Gossom would say, --something with another kind of reward than theWall Street crown. "

"I wish he might find work here for Rob, " Margaret said; "something outhere where he belongs that will not pay him in fame or money. For he hasthat other thing in him, the love of beauty, of the ideal. " She spoke withease and naturally of her lover. "And there has been so little that isideal in his life, --so little to feed his spirit. "

And she added in a low voice, "I saw her in New York--his wife. "

"Bessie!"

"Yes, --she was there with the girl, --Mildred.... I went to see her--I hadto.... I went several times. She seemed to like me. Do you know, there issomething very lovable in that woman; I can see why Rob married her. Shehas wrecked herself, --her own life. She would never submit to what thedoctor calls the discipline of life. She liked herself just as she was; shewanted to be always a child of nature, to win the world with her charm, tohave everything nice and pleasant and gay about her, and be petted into thebargain. Now she is gray and homely and in bad health--and bitter. It ispitiful to wake up at forty after you have been a child all your life, andrealize that life was never what you thought it was.... I was very sorryfor her. "

"Will they ever come together again?"

"Perhaps! Who knows? The girl must bring them together; she will not bewholly satisfied with her mother, and Rob needs his daughter.... I hopeso--for his sake. But it will be hard for them both, --hard for him to livewith a spent woman, and hard for her to know that she has missed what shewanted and never quite to understand why.... But it may be better than wecan see, --there is always so much of the unknown in every one. That is thegreat uplifting thought! We live in space and above unseen depths. Andvoices rise sometimes from the depths. "

And lying there under the stars Margaret thought what she could notspeak, --of the voice that had risen within her and made her refuse theutmost of personal joy. She had kissed her lover and held him in her armsand sent him away from her. Without him she could not have lived; nor couldshe live keeping him.... 

At last they came to Renault, the one who had opened their eyes to life andto themselves. 

"Still working, " Margaret said, "burning up there in the hills like asteady flame! Some day he will go out, --not die, just wholly consume fromwithin, like one of those old lamps that burn until there is nothing, nooil left, not even the dust of the wick. "

As the faint morning breeze began to draw across the upland they fellasleep, clasping hands. 

CHAPTER LXXX

The rising sun had barely shot its first beams over the eastern swell whenLane came to the tent to call them for the early breakfast before the day'sexpedition to a wonderful canon. Isabelle, making a sign to John not todisturb Margaret, who was still fast asleep, drew the blanket over hershoulders and joined her husband. The level light flooded the rollingupland with a sudden glory of gold, except along the outer rim of thehorizon where the twilight color of deep violet still held. Husband andwife strolled away from the tents in the path of the sun. 

"Big, isn't it?" he exclaimed. 

"Yes!" she murmured. "It is a big, big world!" And linking her arm in histhey walked on towards the sun together. 

In the morning light the earth was fresh and large and joyous. And life, asRenault had said over the body of the dead child, seemed good, all of it!That which was past, lived vainly and in stress, and that which was to comeas well. So Alice had affirmed in the presence of her bereavement.... Lifeis good, all of it, --all its devious paths and issues!

"It is so good to be here with you!" Isabelle whispered to her husband. 

"Yes, --it is a good beginning, " he replied. And in his face she read thathe also understood that a larger life was beginning for them both. 

As they turned back to the tents, they saw Margaret huddled in her blanketlike a squaw, gazing steadily at the sun. 

"And the morrow is added to the morrow to make eternity, " she was murmuringto herself. "But always a new world, a new light, a new life!"